Review of Smashed (2012) by Brian L — 12 Mar 2013

Mary Elizabeth Winstead's Kate's first few drunken nights in the movie are scary. She smokes crack, sleeps in the street, and pees herself in a store while trying to steal alcohol after 2am. She then sobers up.

Smashed is about the decease that alcoholism is, and how Kate recovers from it, fucks up, and recovers once again, probably for good. Winstead is pretty great, as her character goes through so many emotions and she pulls it off.

Aaron Paul's Charlie, her husband, gets fucked. And that's what I'm angry at with the movie. He's an alcoholic too, and they are great together when they are both drunk, but he doesn't get into those crazy situations like he does.

And so when she sobers up, he loses her, as she doesn't know how to be with him anymore. I didn't like that. She's the one that was fucking up, she got help, and then when she loses it and gets drunk again after months she blames it on him? He was a good alcoholic, or at least we never got to see him as bad as she was.

Until the end of course, but that was because of her so it's not the same. Loved Paul's performance in that last scene he has, just very honest and fantastic. Nick Offerman is very great as well as Kate's colleague at the school and savior.

Though his creepy weird situation with Kate towards the end didn't make much sense for the story. Overall, it's a pretty good story with a sad, if necessary ending for Kate's story. I just think maybe I would've liked more to see Charlie's story instead.