SMASHED (R) The list of great drunks in cinema is much too long to list here. The list of realistic portrayals of alcoholics is far shorter. Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead has stood out in her previous movies—as the cheerleader-clad aspiring actress in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and as the object of geek desire in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World—despite her performances being one-note and forgettable. She’s cute, though lacking in range. Her performance in Smashed shows there is more depth to Winstead than she’s previously displayed or that a director has helped coax out of her. Good thing, considering the entire movie rests on her shoulders. Winstead is a real great surprise.
Kate (Winstead) is an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles. She’s married to a music writer, Charlie (“Breaking Bad”‘s Aaron Paul), and the two spend their time together in a toxic blur of alcohol and living insulated from the harsh realities of their addictions. Drinking is fun, which is why people do it. Nevertheless, you can’t live embracing the credo of “Have a good time, all the time” for long, no matter what the keyboardist in This Is Spinal Tap says. The bottom has to drop out at some point, and for Kate, the bottom has already dropped by the first scene. She wakes up alongside Charlie, the sheets and mattress soaked in urine, and scrambles to clear her head so that she can go to work. In the school parking lot, Kate guzzles some booze, then rushes into class and gives an effective (albeit drunken) lesson to the kids. She then vomits in front of them. When explaining what happened to her compassionate boss, Principal Barnes (Megan Mullally), she lies and says that it was because she’s pregnant. This little lie, expertly drawn out by director/writer James Ponsoldt (who hails from Athens) and co-screenwriter Susan Burke, grows larger through the movie, becoming the narrative snowball that painfully shows how an addict lives in a state of perpetual untruth.
What’s remarkable about this modest yet striking work, beyond the solid acting from everyone, is how Ponsoldt carefully balances tones. The events are grim and sad, but the approach isn’t depressing. That’s not to suggest it’s handled superficially. Watching a character in the grip of an addiction and coming unraveled shouldn’t be entertaining, but it should be riveting… which Smashed certainly is.
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