Review of Smashed (2012) by Dave J — 14 Aug 2014

Wednesday, January 15, 2014.

(2012) Smashed.

DRAMA.

Co-written and directed by James Ponsoldt starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Kate Hannah who unexpectedly threw up on front of her students while teaching her first grade class. One of the students then asks whether it was a sign of her being pregnant, so she chooses to go along with that informing her co-workers that is the case. Her live-in common law husband, Charlie (Aaron Paul) doesn't seem to help either as he drinks as much as she does, and doesn't appear to do anything else. And it was during at this time she started to go to A.A. meetings.

Strictly by the book and consist of nothing I haven't seen before myself which leads to whether the movie is credible or not. For instance, I was quite baffled about how Kate got this teaching gig in the first place, since one would need university credits and so forth, and that her live-in husband appears to be a drinker throughout his life who practically lives in a house given to him by his wealthy parents. And then, there is also another baffling scene when Kate's husband finally got arrested for intoxication, and yet he's charged for something I don't know what, but it was severe enough for him to make a financial call to his parents when in actuality people don't get charged for acting drunk on the street. If someone gets too drunk, they're usually put in the 'drunk tank' and then released once they're sober, and with no charge probably except a cab home or to their vehicles. And that it seemed to appear that it was Kate husband's first time he was indeed caught by the police despite being an alcoholic for a very long time and to me that is unrealistic. And what's up with those scenes with Kate waking up in the middle of nowhere when in most cases she could've been mugged or assaulted as a result of being too plastered, snoozing through the night. It is for those reasons why the movie never succeeded into convincing it's viewers that Kate and her husband ever even have an alcohol problem in the first place.

2 out of 4 stars.