Well, this was refreshing - a movie set almost exclusively in one room, with four people who meet to discuss the beating ( one whack with a piece of wood) of one of couple's child at the hands of the other. The movie is set in Brooklyn - in the gentrified Brooklyn Bridge area which is now essentially, (culturally at least) an extension of Manhattan. Civility quick gave way to a veiled blaming as both sides sought to uncover the 'sins of the fathers' which could have caused the event which played out between their two eleven year olds.
The aggressor's father (Chistoph Waltz) appeared to use his blackberry as an appendage as he did damage control for the pharmaceutical company which he represented; his wife (Kate Winslet) was preoccupied with her appearance, constantly stroking a lock of hair across her forehead, and deftly re-applying lipstick mid-sentence without the aid of a mirror. She, appropriately enough, loses all her composure when she throws up on the coffee table art books belonging to the victim's mother ( Jodie Foster), a highly strung perfectionist, and quite possibly, an alcoholic. The victim's father (William C. Riley) seemed like a teddy-bear - apparently affable, but cold-hearted enough to release his daughter's pet hamster into traffic because he was sick of the noise it made at night.
Loyalties slackened as the dynamics of each marriage became evident - the two couples became four individuals, aligning themselves in various ways from moment to moment; wives against husbands, moderates against liberals; alliances made and dissembled in the course of the heated conversation.The thin veneer of civiility gave way to raw viciousness, exposing each person's insecurities and angst, before snapping tightly back into defense and accusation again.
There was no resolution, they still didn't decide at the end of all of that talk how to deal with the situation of the playground violence, which seemed mercifully expedient by comparison.
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