IF you arrive late for this compact dramatic comedy, directed by Roman Polanski, you’ll miss opening titles preparing us to expect something special from its cast of four actors on the top of their profession.

Yasmine Reza’s screenplay from her novel cries out for a third incarnation as a one-act play unfolding in the apartment of Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael Longstreet (John C. Reilly) where Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan Cowan (Christoph Waltz) are visiting to discuss a playground incident in which their son whacked the Longstreets’ son with a stick, damaging two front teeth.

Watching it, I remembered “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolfe?”, the Cowans and Longstreets resembling a double dose of George and Martha. Alliances form in all directions and collapse, settlement propositions arise and sink, old sores are opened, fresh wounds are sustained.

Polanski and Reza don’t care how we respond to it, so long as we laugh. “Carnage” delivers comedy and humour packaged separately. It’s clever. It’s witty. Its four characters spend 75 minutes riding its swings and roundabouts, occasionally falling off or tossing their cookies. Its acting is bravura – visualisation intelligent; dialogue brilliant; staging uncompromising and resolution surprising.

As you may have gathered, I liked it a lot.

At Dendy and Greater Union