In Roman Polanski’s Carnage , two couples square off in a 4-way — or is it a 48-way? — skirmish involving parenting issues, class resentment, the self-centered nature of our society, and both sexual politics and the other kind. This is a drawing-room comedy set in what just may be one of the outer circles of hell: The well-appointed (but just shabby enough) Brooklyn apartment of a persnickety couple who advertise their liberal ideals perhaps more obviously than they practice them. These two insufferable individuals are meeting with a matched set of same, the perhaps better-heeled (and equally smug) parents of a boy who struck their son with a stick, knocking out a tooth or two in the process. By the time each of these mini-nightmare characters has had a swing at each of the others — and by the time one of them has vomited on a valuable art book — the permutations of animosity and indignation have multiplied into an algebraic equation of headachey proportions.
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REVIEW: Brisk, Disciplined Carnage Is Good — Not Great — Polanski
