Based on a nasty comic stage play, “The Gods of Carnage,” Roman Polanski brings this 80-miniut translation and adaptation for the American scene to the screen, shot of course, in Paris. Two pre-adolescent boys fight in a park in Brooklyn and one knocks two teeth of the other out with a large stick. The parents of the victim, Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John C Riley) host the parents of the perpetrator, Alan and Nancy Cowan (Christopher Waltz and Kate Winslet) to resolve the matter in a civil manner. Alan is a lawyer who keeps taking calls regarding a corporate client’s liability case. The tension and the conflict grow as they argue about what is acceptable in society, their own marriages and behavior, and their kids. It starts with the feel of the play with very closed action in the apartment and rather stilted and unrealistic courtesy, but that’s also the intended feel of false civility embedded in our society’s equally faux political rectitude and concern for social good and social order. Unpleasant events and alcohol disinhibit. Bile flows in abundance. . This is good, but rather like “Virginia Wolff” light for a time dominated by perfect upper-middle class couples that are far from perfect or happy. Nicely acted, but like most adapted plays, a tad mannered and unnatural. People act like that but do people really talk like that?.