The medium of film has taught us to pity the drunks. Or outright
laugh at them.
Maybe it’s more than that, though, because there has been a
constant evolution of alcoholism on film. Audiences laughed at boozy W.C.
Fields, they acknowledged the problem in The
Lost Weekend, they shamelessly judged Dean Martin in Rio Bravo as the inebriated
cowboy. There was also a cautionary period that broadcast to us the dangers of
alcohol: Bad Santa, Leaving Las Vegas and Under the Volcano. “Here is how ugly it
can get,” they said loudly and plainly.
Smashed takes a
different approach entirely by showing a realistic drinker and her realistic
problem, but it never allows her to be a helpless victim. The movie follows
Kate, a young school teacher who has grown up in a culture of alcohol. In the
first scene she wakes up hung over to find she’s wet the bed. “I have a weak
bladder,” she tells her husband as an excuse. Her morning coffee has a shot of
rum in it, and then she slugs at a flask in the faculty parking lot at her school.
She’s trying to fix a tie game between sober vs. drunk, because neither feels
that great.
Her husband, Charlie, is some sort of online writer so he stays
home all day and plans their evenings at bars, clubs and get-togethers. When he
drinks he starts to doze off, but when she drinks she tends to get louder, more
aggressive and creates scenes at liquor stores and karaoke bars. She has this
unfortunate habit of peeing in places she shouldn't. Her first wake-up call: she
vomits in front of her grade-school students, who all ask if she’s pregnant
(perceptive kids). Her second wake-up call: she comes to under an overpass on a
dirty sofa used by homeless people.
Kate is played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who starred in last
year’s unfortunate reboot of The Thing.
She gives an honest and brave performance, one of the best this year, as a
damaged alcoholic. I was surprised by the freshness of her story arc; it is
free of many of the clichés that come with movies of this type. Charlie is
played by Aaron Paul, whose Pinkman character on Breaking Bad has endured his own addiction. These two young actors
work good together because their stories feel genuine; they are not victims of
some writer’s pretend interpretation of alcoholism. These could be real stories
in your own family, down the street or one cubicle over.
The movie feels especially authentic because it’s not just about
alcohol addiction, but about the long road to recovery as well. Once Kate
realizes she might have a problem she’s invited to an Alcoholics Anonymous
meeting with a coworker. She stops drinking, gets a sponsor (Octavia Spencer),
starts the 12 Steps and begins to re-shape her life. But nothing lines up the
way she thought. Charlie still drinks, her mother openly chastises her for
drying up and everywhere are bottles that scream in temptation. As she struggles
with all this, Smashed frames Kate
within a compassionate bubble. We don’t pity her, judge her or trivialize her
ordeal. We just watch and listen.
Addiction has been shown in these ways before, and recently too.
Think back to the Christopher Moltisanti sobriety plotlines on The Sopranos. The show spent a great
deal of time talking about addiction, triggers and the AA methods. “I will
never be normal again,” Christopher would say as he watched people drink
socially without consequence. I think also of HBO’s other great show, The Wire, in which homeless addict Bubbles hits
bottom and then bounces back up with the help of sponsors, sharing and dramatic
life changes. There was love and tenderness in these scenes, and the characters
were respected by giving their decisions meaning and value. Smashed mines into a similar message by
showing Kate’s sudden collapse and eventual rise, and showing these events
under uncompromising terms without cheapening who Kate is and who she will
become.
There are characters I’m leaving out, including Nick Offerman (Ron
Swanson from Parks and Recreation), who
plays the friend of Bill’s who introduces Kate to AA. Offerman’s real-life wife
Megan Mullally plays Kate’s school principal, who hears that Kate threw up in
class and assumes the students are right, that Kate is pregnant. Of course, she
throws a surprise baby shower for un-expectant Kate. Both of these characters
do things that we cringe at, but they are realistic actions that mire Kate
further in her problem.
The film has a preachy side to it, but I prefer that over a
bombastic Michael
Bay
Smashed is a powerful film,
and it respects its characters more than most. I hope that Winstead is not
forgotten when insiders start throwing around award-worthy names in the next
several months. Yes, actors and actresses win awards for playing sad,
depressing characters who humiliate themselves for their addictions. But that’s
not why Winstead deserves recognition. She deserves it not for the drunk parts,
but the ex-drunk parts, because her rise is so much more interesting than her
fall.
