Carnage

Running time: 79 minutes

Rated: R (language, alcohol, and cellphone abuse)

If you’re a parent, Roman Polanski’s “Carnage’’ may seem like 79 brisk, delightful minutes of schadenfreude. Based on Yasmina Reza’s 2008 play “Le Dieu du Carnage’’ (subsequently translated by Christopher Hampton into “God of Carnage’’ and a success on London and Broadway stages), the film covers one late afternoon in the lives of two upscale Brooklyn couples, the Longstreets and the Cowans. Their two young sons have had a playground set-to, and little Cowan has knocked out a few of young Longstreet’s teeth. The parents sit down to discuss the matter in civilized fashion, but civilization, as we and Polanski know, is a thin veneer over self-interest and rage. Let the games begin.

Of course it’s the equivalent of shooting complacent carp in a barrel, and not just because this director is an old hand at putting characters in tight spaces and squeezing them until they pop. (I offer my standard disclaimer here: If Polanski’s past transgressions render “Carnage’’ unwatchable for you, by all means skip the film and this review. All others, proceed with eyes open and consciences on high alert.) Just because a target’s big, though, doesn’t mean you can’t aim at it, and Reza’s vision of sins among the yuppie play-date set is glib but stinging. You may recognize the arrogance and anxieties, the class resentments and domestic bile, from your PTA’s most recent talent night. More likely, they’re as close as the nearest mirror.

The film’s an even four-hander, with awful behavior spread evenly among the characters and spellbinding performances by the quartet of co-leads. The Longstreets, Michael (John C. Reilly) and Penelope (Jodie Foster), are down-to-earth progressives: He’s a plumbing-supplies salesman, she’s writing a book about Darfur. In the opposite corner are the Cowans, elegant power-mom Veronica (Kate Winslet) and husband Alan (Christoph Waltz), the latter a CrackBerry-wielding lawyer for a dodgy pharmaceutical giant.