Roman Polanski's new drama **Carnage **defies easy categorisation. It's funny, yes, but it also offers a Stepford Wives-y dissection of middle-class mores that strips away the artifices of politeness one layer at a time. What's left is a stinky mess that's reminiscent of Bill Paxton's fate at the end of Weird Science.
Polanski's film boasts a cast of Oscar winners boozing, bickering and projectile vomiting through his adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s play God Of Carnage to four-star effect. The film has a new quad poster which gives a freeze-framed 'before' and 'after' look at the four cast members: Jodie Foster (the smart, self-righteous Penelope), John C. Reilly (her blue-collar husband, Michael), Kate Winslet (the passive-aggressive Nancy) and Christoph Waltz (wry, arrogant Alan).
[
](http://www.empireonline.com/News/story.asp?nid=31839)"It all happens in real-time, so it’s about an hour and 45 minutes of negotiation between two sets of parents and how it all falls apart," says Foster of the film. "Kind of like Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, but a little funnier. There’s a lot of wit.” Actually, it's closer to 90 minutes, but otherwise the description is pretty much spot-on.
Want more proof? Watch Carnage's trailer below, or catch the film when it's out in UK cinemas on February 3.