Marriage; On the Rocks

Movies: Smashed

There be spoilers in this review!

Smashed is a film about a married couple, Kate and Charlie, who are codependent alcoholics. And when I say "alcoholics", I don't mean that they share a bottle of wine over dinner a few times a week. These people drink and drink and drink. They have a serious problem. Kate, especially, has problems. The film opens with her getting up in the morning after another night of hard drinking. She has wet the bed (again), and she and her hubby act like it's no big thang. She drinks a beer in the shower as she gets ready to go to her job teaching first graders. She ends up throwing up in front of them. And that's not even remotely the most humiliating thing that happens to Kate as a consequence of her drinking.

After a bender that involves urinating in public and drunk bicycling, Kate realizes things need to change. A coworker who is a recovering addict himself offers to take her to an AA meeting, and within one meeting, Kate finds a sponsor. But as she begins to sober up, her relationship with Charlie unravels as the two realize they don't have much in common besides getting wasted.


In my opinion, Smashed was just an ok film. Mary Elizabeth Winstead's performance as Kate was the best thing about it. This is a very unglamorous role. Kate wears no makeup and hideous "mom who gave up" type outfits. I admired the choice of the filmmakers to make Kate the opposite of a sex object. She's naturally pretty, but they don't gussy her up in tight clothes and high heels. The focus of the film is 100% on her struggles with alcohol and relationships; her looks are beside the point.

The rest of the cast is...ok. Aaron Paul, so fierce and edgy in Breaking Bad, is well-cast as the laid back, arrested development hubby who loves partying with his wife more than he actually loves his wife. Nick Offerman of Parks and Rec plays Kate's supportive, but creepy coworker, who gets the best/worst line in the movie. Octavia Spencer is Jenny, Kate's AA sponsor, in an uncomfortably "mammy"-like role: a recovering addict African-American woman who provides tough love and lots of food to those around her.

I really can't speak for alcoholics or addicts, but Smashed didn't seem very realistic to me. Kate has a *serious* drinking problem and is probably physiologically addicted to alcohol. Yet, after one AA meeting, she quits drinking cold turkey for months. Of course, she falls off the wagon near the end of the film after a serious setback in her life. But after an emotionally gripping scene where she comes home drunk and then rages at Charlie, telling him she can't be sober AND be with him, --BAM--the movie flashes forward and Kate is sober one year. Whaaaa?!

Smashed had an intriguing premise: what happens to a marriage when one person makes radical changes in their life? What if those changes are for the better, but the other partner isn't ready to deal with them? However, in practice Smashed didn't really seem to work. The movie had a lot of unrealistic extremes that didn't match up: for example, Kate' extreme alcoholism and her extremely easy time getting sober. I mean, I guess I can't judge because I don't know much about alcoholism and AA, but I had to give this movie the serious side-eye many times.

3 out of 5 stars