This is a Roman Polanski Film starring four of the most accomplished stars of Hollywood if you count box office success and Oscars.  The setting is present-day Manhattan and almost all of the scenes are in a couples’ home.  The opening scene on a playground is without sound, but we learn that an eleven year old boy hits another young boy with a stick which causes bruising, swelling, and the loss of two teeth.  (Trivia:  the boy with the stick is Elvis Polanski, the son of Roman and Polanski himself has a Hitchcockian cameo as the neighbor looking out his door.)

The balance of the movie is about the interaction between the two sets of parents of the two boys who begin a meeting of cordiality and reconciliation in the home of the injured boy.  Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster) offers homemade cake with apples and pears while her apparently doting husband Michael Longstreet (John C. Reilly) helps serve the parents of the stick-swinging boy Nancy Cowan (Kate Winslet) and Alan Cowan (Christoph Waltz).

Now you got it; the parents are Jodie “Silence of the Lambs” Foster, John C. “Chicago” Reilly, Kate “Titanic” Winslet, and Christoph “Inglourious Basterds” Waltz and directed by Roman “I can’t come home” Polanski.  Therefore, this is a must-see movie.  The talent jumps off the screen.  The storyline is a bit tortured and the sheer entertainment factor is lower than one would want, but the acting is off-the-charts good.

I am still processing the characterizations developed by these four.  And I am smiling and pondering the reasoning and risks taken by each.  Polanski has a way of getting his actors to take chances; these four thespians must have trusted the mysterious genius of Polanski.

The afternoon get-together between the two couples began civilly, but escalated as each of them allowed the event to drag on far too long and allowed 18 year-old scotch to enter the mix.  This movie is a classic tale of human emotions and prejudices routinely hidden under a façade of caring.  Watching the spiraling emotions and passions of these four deteriorate into raw sentiments of blame and accusation is a thing of beauty.

Historically, great acting cannot carry a weak script but this is an exception.  It’s not a bad script, but it lacks believability because no one acts and reacts the way these decidedly dysfunctional parents did.  I loved the clever lines provided by Polanski and co-writer Yasmina Reza, but the twine did not bind for me.  It was a free-for-all of great actors.  And in this case, there is nothing wrong with savoring the craft of four outstanding artists.  Rock ‘n Roll. Grade 90.  Larry H.