By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
"Smashed," a slight, tenderhearted film about a hard-drinking young woman who risks her marriage to try to get sober, is presented in a series of compelling, darkly comic vignettes. While the film gives some elements of this tale the short shrift in an effort to keep to its brisk pace, the performance from its lead is so magnetic and true that it scarcely matters.
The title "Smashed" refers not so much to the nearly perpetual state of inebriation that a young husband and wife put themselves in but rather to the way the wife finds her existence truly shattered when she tries to get sober.
As a way out of a potentially career-ending debacle, Kate tells her class that she is pregnant — a story that makes its way to Kate's boss, the compassionate if nosy Principal Barnes (Megan Mullally).
When Kate begins her recovery, she convincingly conveys a sense of dislocation at having to get to know herself all over again, and make sense of the choices she has made.
