Delayed Reaction: Smashed

The Pitch: A woman breaks herself from her alcoholic ways.

Damn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead! I've had this in my queue for a while simply because of how often I heard in 2012 that she was robbed of [at least] an Oscar nomination. And, yeah, that is very true. I've liked Winstead for a while. She was very good in 10 Cloverfield Lane last year.  She almost made the The Thing remake work. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Sky High. She has a history of showing up a lot. Even with the warning though, I was very impressed by her performance in Smashed. If nothing else, it's hard to play drunk convincingly. Beyond that, she adds so much nuance to the role. I just can't say enough good things about her. Fantastic work.

The rest of the movie - meh. It's a vehicle for Winstead and designed as such. It's not even 90 minutes long and it still has some unneeded detours like Nick Offerman making an ass of himself. The pregnancy mix-up is one of those cases of farce for the sake of farce. I don't believe she would've let it go on for so long, even if she was more concerned at the time with being sober. Aaron Paul gets to be rather heartbreaking, but it was just a little too similar to Jesse Pinkman to be impressed by it. I also appreciated that the movie didn't have anything too horrible happen to Winstead's character. I was ready for a rape or the Requiem for a Dream treatment. Instead, it was just a build-up of warning signs leading her to sobriety.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend