“Carnage”
Film Title: Carnage
Year of Release: 2011 Film
Director: Roman Polanski
Film Length: 80 minutes
Based on Original Screenplay: “God of Carnage” Yasmina Reza
Interpersonal Communication concepts: Interpersonal Relationships: Complementary &
Parallel Relationships, Relationship Challenges: Reproach – Account – Justification, and Stages
of Interpersonal Relationship Development: Rational Escalation
Film Description: Carnage is a black comedy-drama following a meeting between parents that
was meant to be short – but instead turned into a disastrous and excruciating sit-down.
The film begins with a group of boys on a playground, they talk for a while until we realize they
are arguing, at which point the argument escalates and one by gets hit in the face with a wooden
stick. The scene cuts to a group of parents huddled around a computer screen as Penelope
Longstreet is making a written account of the events that happened earlier. She describes the
altercation and eventually types, “…Zachary, armed with a stick…” at which point Alan Cowan
objects, “Armed?”. Penelope offers to change the word, but the damage has already been done
and it’s only the beginning.
As the couples sit down they are perfectly polite to one another, but as they talk more, snide
