Jan. 17, 2013 - Issue #900: The ongoing musical evolution of Hannah Georgas
Smashed
Imbibing a morning mug
The heart part comes mainly from Winstead herself, who is credible in both moments of distress and moments of determination, and at all times hopelessly adorable, even in dowdy dresses, even peeing on the floor of a convenience store, even while having bad bouncing-to-oblivion sex, even—or perhaps especially—while nattering crack-addled under a bridge in the middle of the night, bragging about growing up poor to a captive audience of homeless people. "You and me, we aren't so different," she tells them. And sure, she's even adorable when pulling up her bleary psychic bootstraps, climbing up on the wagon, confronting her drunken mother, going to Alcoholics Anonymous and unavoidably alienating her husband Charlie (Aaron Paul), who loves her to death, but doesn't quite understand what this not-drinking stuff is all about. It's the movie's only significant twist on the well-tread road to recovery: the arduousness of getting sober when the person you share your life with just wants to keep the good times rolling and the emergency route to the toilet free of obstacles. Yet somehow, once these characters have drawn their lines, the problems faced by Kate and Charlie ultimately don't feel arduous enough. There's a deeper tragedy left unexplored here: maybe some of us can drink and some of us can't, and maybe every once in a while the drinker and the one who can't drink fall in love and start a life together, and when the drinking has to end for the one who shouldn't drink, maybe love is simply impossible, period.
Far more economical and far less patronizing, propagandistic and ethically confused than, say, Flight, Smashed is also somehow slighter and more mechanical. Scenes of confrontation between Kate and Charlie, or Kate and her alcoholic mom or Kate and the employer she deceives (she pretends she barfed in class because she's pregnant) feel wrote, slavish and, no pun intended, dry. Smashed strives to be sobering, but it winds up feeling mostly just hungover, draped in that day-after gloom that renders even reasons for hope uninspiring. All this is to say, see the film for Winstead, and make a mental note of Ponsoldt.
Metro Cinema at the Garneau
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