'Smashed' is one of those films that doesn't require much of a long- winded critique. It features a very solid performance by Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Kate Hannah, an elementary school teacher with a serious drinking problem. Perhaps the best scenes come at the beginning of the film: Kate vomits in front of her elementary school children and then attempts to hide the fact that she previously went on a bender by claiming that she's pregnant. Later, she drives drunk with a woman who she just met at a bar and subsequently shares crack with.
'Smashed' becomes rather perfunctory when it examines the deteriorating relationship between Kate and her also alcoholic husband, Charlie. When Kate finally decides that she wants to become sober, Charlie rather predictably clings to the bottle and Kate drifts away. But after Kate confesses to her principal that the story about being pregnant was a lie, she's promptly fired and she falls apart.
Time does heal all wounds and Kate finally accepts the precepts of AA and gets better. At this point, 'Smashed' feels more like a promo for Alcoholics Anonymous than a drama replete with the requisite twists and turns.
There are also a couple of underdeveloped sub-plots including the vice principal, Mr. Davies, a recovering alcoholic who convinces Kate to join AA in the first place but makes a sexual advance that leads to his rejection. Octavia Spencer also has little to do as Kate's sponsor.
'Smashed' is partially saved by Ms. Winstead's excellent performance but ultimately becomes too preachy in regards to its anti-alcohol message as well as too predictable in its dissection of the deteriorating relationship between the now recovering wife and booze-addicted husband, set in his alcoholic ways.
'Smashed' becomes rather perfunctory when it examines the deteriorating relationship between Kate and her also alcoholic husband, Charlie. When Kate finally decides that she wants to become sober, Charlie rather predictably clings to the bottle and Kate drifts away. But after Kate confesses to her principal that the story about being pregnant was a lie, she's promptly fired and she falls apart.
Time does heal all wounds and Kate finally accepts the precepts of AA and gets better. At this point, 'Smashed' feels more like a promo for Alcoholics Anonymous than a drama replete with the requisite twists and turns.
There are also a couple of underdeveloped sub-plots including the vice principal, Mr. Davies, a recovering alcoholic who convinces Kate to join AA in the first place but makes a sexual advance that leads to his rejection. Octavia Spencer also has little to do as Kate's sponsor.
'Smashed' is partially saved by Ms. Winstead's excellent performance but ultimately becomes too preachy in regards to its anti-alcohol message as well as too predictable in its dissection of the deteriorating relationship between the now recovering wife and booze-addicted husband, set in his alcoholic ways.