The line between "kids being kids" and "kids being reprehensible little monsters" provides the ostensible source of conflict in Roman Polanski's dark ensemble comedy Carnage, but the real issues at stake go much deeper: What happens when agreed-upon social boundaries are transgressed? How about when we realize we never agreed on any boundaries in the first place? Carnage's conversation between four adults begins politely enough, and ends with drunkenness, shouting, vomit, and accusations of hamstercide. None of these characters come out unscathed, and determining which among them is the most despicable is something of an audience Rorschach test. by Alison Hallett