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Carnage | 2011 | R | - 1.4.6

When two sets of parents (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly, and Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet) meet to discuss a fight between their two sons, but their conversation quickly deteriorates into chaos. Directed by Roman Polanski. [1:19]

SEX/NUDITY 1 - A woman walks into a bathroom and we see a man holding his pants; he is wearing brief-style underwear. A woman walks into a bathroom with her husband and we see that he is wearing brief-style underwear.
 A man jokes, "Who wants to say the Hail Mary when you're having sex."

VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - Two boys shove each other and one of the boys swings a stick around and hits the other boy; he drops his head and we later learn that two of the boy's teeth had been knocked out.
 A woman punches and shoves her husband but he acts unfazed. A husband shoves his wife accidentally as he absentmindedly walks out of an elevator.
 A woman throws another woman's purse through the air, objects fly out of it and the other woman weeps as she picks up broken things from her purse, while shouting at her husband to reprimand the other woman for throwing her purse. A woman picks up flowers, beats them against a table while shouting and petals are strewn around the room and table. A man angrily slaps an elevator button.
 A woman vomits on top of a pile of magazines: the vomit splatters all over a man's suit and a coffee table, a man offers the woman a casserole dish and she continues to throw up; a man then offers the woman a trash can and a man scoops vomit off the table and a book, while the woman dry heaves for a moment and a man hands her a bucket. A woman says she feels like she is going to vomit again, another woman asks her woman to stand over a bucket and she carries the bucket as she paces around the room; we hear her gagging and see her head in the bucket. A woman grabs her stomach, tells another woman that she feels nauseous and her husband remarks that she looks pale. A woman says that she feels like she is going to throw up and a man offers that she can go to the bathroom. A woman smells her hand and acts disgusted. We see a man and a woman cleaning themselves after a woman threw up. A woman spits after gargling water. A man talks with his mouth full of food.
 A woman charges toward a man, shouting that the man had murdered a hamster and the man shouts that he has no remorse. A wife shouts at her husband, takes his cell phone and drops it in a vase of water; she and another woman laugh as the man shouts and uses a hairdryer to dry out the phone.
 A husband shouts at his wife, saying he will not feel remorse or apologize to a child for releasing the child's hamster into the gutter. A woman shouts at a man to stop talking on the phone. A husband shouts at his wife and she shouts back; she becomes upset, shouts at a man, another woman and her husband and then begins to weep. A wife shouts at her husband and the man whispers back intently. A husband shouts at his wife, saying that she should not have told a man and a woman that he had let a hamster out of a cage. A woman shouts that she is glad her son beat up another woman's son. A woman shouts at another woman and a man saying that she thinks two boys are equally guilty for a fight. A woman shouts at a man that his son had "brutalized" her son. A woman shouts that her husband had been hit with a stick; the man reprimands the woman, saying that his child "was being a child." A woman shouts that her son must have felt the need to defend himself after being verbally abused. A man shouts at his mother over the phone saying that a medication can kill someone because it is "poisonous." A woman tries to calm down another woman as she shouts at her husband. We overhear a man shouting on a phone about a drug being recalled because "Three guys can't walk a straight line." A man warns another man, angrily, that if his mother has any side effects from a drug that he will file a class action suit against him. A man mocks a woman, saying that he had seen "Your friend Jane Fonda" and that it made him "Want to go out and buy a Ku Klux Klan poster." A woman mocks a man for being afraid of a hamster. A woman shouts that another woman had thrown up and was "disgusting." A man crudely tells a woman that she seems to have "perked up after tossing her cookies." A man remarks that soda is for diarrhea and not upset stomachs. A woman asks another woman if her son had "disfigured a schoolmate"; the attacking son's father childes the woman for using the word "disfigured," saying that the boy will be fine after the swelling recedes and the injured boy's father says that the injury was temporary, trying to calm his wife. A woman snidely remarks to a man, "I wish my son did not lose two teeth in the process" after a man tries to make a joke. A wife and her husband describe to another man and his wife how their son might have to have caps on his teeth after being in a fight, saying that a portion of his nerve was exposed. A woman asks another woman what will happen to a boy's tooth since it broke; the woman explains that a portion of the boy's nerve is exposed and that the boy will have to get a false tooth. A man tells his mother over the phone that his son had gotten "his teeth knocked out" and was in pain, a woman overhears the conversation and asks the man if the boy is still in pain. A woman, speaking aloud as she types, says that a boy had been "armed" with a stick and hit another boy in the mouth, injuring his upper lip and two incisors and that he had possible nerve damage; a man asks the woman to use a different word and they discuss using "hit" instead of "armed." A man tells a woman that he is interested in the "god of carnage" and that he had been in the Congo where children are taught to kill with a machete, gun etc. from age eight. A man tells a woman that a child hitting another one with a bamboo stick does not shock him. A woman tells another woman that she was unsure if she would have been calm if her son's teeth were broken in a fight. A man says that his child had picked up a stick and hit their child, the woman interjects "deliberately" hit him, and the man explains that he understands it was deliberate but that the woman does not need to emphasize the word. A woman tells another woman that her child had been hesitant to implicate another couple's child in a fight. A woman asks a man and a woman if they plan on punishing their child. A woman tells a man and a woman that their son had not allowed her son in his gang; the father of the other child says he is proud of his son being in a gang, saying he had also been in a gang and the other man chimes in and says that he had been in a gang too. A man brags that when he was in a gang he had beaten up a boy, who was larger than he was; another man says that that fight is different than the fight between his son and another couple's son was because he and the boy had agreed to fight. A woman tells another woman that her child has never been a "violent child" and that he must have reacted to being called a name; the woman's husband chimes in to agree and the other woman's husband says that he had in fact been a snitch. A man tells an unseen person over the phone to "go for the jugular" when reporting a drug company. A man reads aloud a newspaper headline about the side effects of a drug to a person over the phone. A woman tells another woman that her daughter is angry with her father because he had gotten rid of a hamster; the man interjects that he had taken a hamster outside and that it looked scared (the other woman looks shocked). A woman asks a man how he had left a hamster outside; the man tells the woman that he does not touch hamsters so he just flipped a cage on its side. A man tells another man and a woman that he is afraid of rodents. A woman tells her husband that he cannot smoke a cigar because they have an asthmatic child and another woman chimes in saying that having a hamster or any pet can be harmful to an asthmatic child. A woman and a man half-jokingly tell another couple that they had always thought one park was safer than another park. A woman waves her hands and says that a room "reeks" from perfume. A man says that his mother is worried about what will remain of her artificial knee after she is cremated. A man makes a joke that two urns will be "chattering to each other" in a funeral. A man dramatically tells another man and a woman that children suck the life out of them. A man tells another man that he told his friend that if he is going to die of cancer eventually, why shorten life with children. A man dramatically says, "We are born alone, we die alone." A woman tells a group, "This is the unhappiest day of my life." A husband says that it is the unhappiest day of his life. A man tells a woman that she is "miserable" when she drinks. A woman mocks her husband, saying that he looks all "hunched over like he was left on the side of the road." A woman tells a man that he is insensitive for not being concerned about people starving in Africa.

LANGUAGE 6 - About 14 F-words and its derivatives, 27 scatological terms (3 mild), 8 anatomical terms, 12 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for homosexuals, name-calling (maniac, thug, useless, idiot, snitch, horrible, thick, sheep, coward, snot-nosed brat, pathetic, short tempered [expletive deleted], totally negative person, wimpy, a little indecent, old and empty, all over you like a bad rash, hotshot fire-brands, clap trap, unbearable, openly despicable, contemptibly nihilistic attitude, phony, fake, quartermaster on a slave ship, heroic figures of a social movement), exclamations (shut up), 3 religious profanities, 9 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - We see two women drink to the point of obvious drunkenness, a man drinks heavily and appears unaffected, two men drink liquor, a woman tells a man that she and another woman want a drink, a man tries to hold a bottle of liquor over a woman's head, a woman grabs a bottle of liquor out of man's hand and pours herself a drink as another woman remarks that "it's not like liquor is bad for you," and a husband tells his wife that she should not drink in "your condition" after she vomits. A man offers another man a cigar, a woman shouts that a man cannot smoke a cigar in the house, and we see two men holding cigars. A man discusses "normal doses" and a drug being recalled after a series of serious side effects, a man jokingly tells a man that a drug's side effect makes it "look like you're drunk," and a woman tells another woman that her child has to "take two codeine" in the middle of the night.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Rivalry, parent-child interaction, drug companies, litigation, anger management, childhood rivalry, bullying, arguments, rationalization.

MESSAGE - Arguments can very quickly get out of control.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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