Two Dark Comedies, Two Distinctly Different Reviews: Carnage and Young Adult

Dark comedy, or black comedy, is often something you get or you don't.  It's a strange breed of comdy, and is often synonymous with the idea of laughing at someone else's pain (despite them knowing it or not).  It would be fare to say that it is a difficult genre to pull off for movie makers.  It's easy to go over the line of cynicism.

This brings me to Carnage and Young Adult.

Carnage - R

Carnage is Roman Polanski's latest film (Rosemary's Baby, The Pianist) and was released in the United States in December of 2011.  Clearly the timing of the film alludes to Oscar hopes, which was not realized.

The story centers around two sets of parents trying to come to an agreement about a fight their children got into in the park.  They settle into a Brooklyn apartment and try to figure out how the children should apologize.  Early on, the parents are putting on heirs of political correctness and patting themselves on the back for being so civilized about the whole matter.

Carnage

Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly) are the parents of Ethan, who was struck in the face with a stick by Zachary in the park over a dispute that would probably only make sense to fellow eleven year olds. Nancy and Alan Cowan (Kate Winslet, Christopher Waltz) have differing opinions on their son, Zachary, and his actions. The two sets of parents try to be polite to each other, but eventually the parents begin to crack.

Alan Cowan (Waltz) is constantly being interrupted by his cell phone, which he is happy to oblige much to his wife's chagrin.  Nancy tries to compliment her hosts apartment with insincere appreciation, and is often referred to as fake behind her back.

Penelope Longstreet is an uptight woman who has lost her sense of humor and has focused her energy on trying to convince everyone of her interest in the suffering around the world -- namely in Darfur.  Her husband, Michael, is a door to door salesman and in the beginning attempts to diffuse any rattling of contempt. He seems the laid back guy, and wants everyone to just get along.

By the end of the movie everyone has come undone, and all their personal problems are bubbling to the surface.  The problem at hand, the boys fight, ends up in the background and the parent's struggles take center stage.  In what could only be accomplished by talented actors, which this movie definitely has, the film captures something very real about our society and how we view ourselves as people.

The film also has a constant theme of entrapment.  The room in which the movie takes place is small (though the apartment is beyond a door to door salesman's pay range) and at times you feel the walls are closing in.  The characters feel trapped in their lives and the living room in which the film takes places captures this feeling for the audience.  Through the windows of the apartment we can see a hustling and bustling world go by while these four characters are stuck in this place at this moment.  The conversation isn't going anywhere, but the rest of the world is.  I think the idea of this captures the fact of how trivial there conversation becomes, but is expertly executed in an intelligent way.

The film is beautifully directed by Polanski and is well acted by all four actors.  The second half of the film shines brighter than the first half.  The hilarity of the film is in its absurdity of life. "What does it all mean" seems to be a recurrent theme in this film.  Bottom line, this film speaks of very real sentiments we can all relate to in some existential way.

Grade: A-


Young Adult- R


Young Adult is a 2011 Jason Reitman film (Juno, Up in the Air), written by Diablo Cody (Juno).  The film was critically acclaimed for its dark humor and was included in many lists as one of the best movies of the year (2011).

The film centers around Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), a ghost writer for a once popular young adult series of books.  She lives in Minneapolis, or the mini-apple as it commonly referred to in this movie.  In the beginning of the movie Mavis receives an e-mail from a former boyfriend announcing the birth of his daughter.  She prints out the picture and begins obsessing over it.

After a one night stand, Mavis packs a suitcase, her dog, and jumps in the car to head back to her hometown on a mission -- to regain the boyfriend she feels is hers.  She is clearly a mess but to what degree is still to be decided in the middle of the movie.

Charlize Theron as Mavis Gary

She immediately heads to the local bar and runs into a former classmate who she doesn't recall. Her arrogant attitude toward disabled Matt (Patton Oswalt) is jarring at times.  She comes to remember him as the "hate crime kid." He was assalted by the jocks of the school who thought he was gay.  He is permanently disabled by the incident.  She later recalls it as a scuffle and tells him to get over it.

She reveals to Matt (in a drunken state) that she is in town to win back her former beau, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson).  Matt calls her crazy and relates that Buddy is a happily married man by all accounts.  She brushes this off and makes a catch-up-date with Buddy for the following evening.

Buddy seems a sincere, loving family guy and oblivious to her all too obvious affections for him.  He asks her to meet up with him again, which she jumps at the chance for, depsite the invitation being to see his wife's band play at the local bar.  She arrives to the gig and casts dirty looks on anyone who looks in her direction.  Mavis ends up giving Buddy a lift home because his wife wants to stay out at the bar later than the babysitter is able to stay (sure, I can see why a woman would have a beautiful ex-girlfriend take her drunk husband home).  Mavis steals a kiss before the babysitter so rudely interrupts!

Depsite the obvious signs that Mavis is up to no good -- and a forbidden kiss -- she is invited to Buddys daughter's naming ceremony. Mavis hates children but happily obliges. in order to be near Buddy.  The event turns out to be a disaster and Mavis' real motives come out in a bullets blazing way.  Buddy's wife reveals she is the one who invited Mavis to the party because she felt sorry for her, despite her husbands objections (yeah, because that sounds like a good reason to destroy an important moment for your family).  Mavis' mental illness is more than obvious by this point.  She flees to her friend/non-friend Matt's for consoling and more.

In the end,we are essentially where we began. Mavis is great and everybody else has the problem.

The film is not funny, first and foremost.  It is disturbing, narcissistic, and cringeworthy at times.  Mavis is clearly mentally unstable and her actions are abhorrent. Charlize Theron does a great job of portraying the train wreck of Mavis, but I question why you would want to portray her to begin with.  There is nothing likeable about the character, and life in small town (which it's not that small) is portrayed as worthless, backward, and a demeaning way to live.  The resolution -- I suppose everyone goes back to their boring, mediocre life while Mavis moves on to bigger and better things. At least that is what the film makers would like to convey.

It was a horrible movie, and hardly black comedy.  If anything, it was a tragedy minus the fact that she never had to pay for her hubris.  I found myself more than once mentally hitting the imaginary break in the passenger side of the car. If you want to feel uncomfortable and cringe, see this movie. If you find this funny, that may actually say something about you.

Grade: D-


I welcome your thoughts on these two films. Leave me a comment!