"Smashed" - Film Review

Stories depicting addiction are never comfortable to watch. They’re often exacting examinations of the destructive power of addiction holds over people, and Smashed is no exception. The film draws us in with its intimate portrait of a marriage where the strongest connection is the couple’s mutual addiction to alcohol.

The plot of Smashed is fairly predictable and the writing is on the wall from very early on. A woman, Kate Hannah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who’s always drinking alcohol goes in to her job as a teacher after a night of heavy drinking and throws up in front of her children. She lies and says she’s pregnant, and, too slow to correct it, the whole school soon believes she’s got a baby on board. Things continue to escalate from there to the point where she starts to question whether there might in fact be a problem with her drinking habits. One drunken night leads to her smoking crack with a complete stranger from the bar, and she finds herself waking up out on the street the following morning.

The principal of her school Dave (Nick Offerman) confides in her that he’s a member of AA, and she joins him at his next meeting, where she finally admits to herself that she has a problem. She finds a sponsor, Jenny (Octavia Spencer), there. 

Things become problematic though between her and her husband Charlie (Aaron Paul) as he continues to drink while she starts up the twelve step program. Their relationship is increasingly strained; tensions mount when he can’t comprehend why she’d want to stop drinking, and the whole basis of their relationship starts to unravel. 

Although the wedging of the two apart is easy to see coming, Winstead and Paul’s performances are so raw that it becomes mesmerizing to watch. There's an unnerving, uneasy level of realism to these characters and their relationship.

Painfully realistic and touchingly humanistic, Smashed is a sad, honest look at alcoholism and a well-acted character study.     

Grade: B