31.12.69

Have a drink, you're feeling happy. Have a drink, you're feeling sad. You're going out - have a drink. You're stuck home alone - have a drink. You need to get your courage up - better drink something. You need to relax a bit - better drink something.

Ugh, hungover again? Lord. OK. Here. Drink this.

This has been the boozy chorus of Kate's life since, oh, high school sometime. But now she's 20-something. And beginning to wonder, well, what if I didn't drink? Not that I have a problem or anything. Oh, no. No. But what if, you know, I didn't?

And that's when her life begins to change.

"Smashed" is Kate's movie and it follows the usual trajectory of movies about addicts of any kind - at first the characters are funny and then they're kind of awful. They hit bottom, go into treatment, do well for awhile, then get stressed and flunk out.

And then start all over again.

"Smashed" pretty much follows that same line. But it does something else that rehab movies have done since "The Lost Weekend," too - give a charming, amusing actor (because drunks can be charming and amusing, at first) a chance to do full-out drama (because eventually, in these stories, that's going to come along, too.

Source: The Star-Ledger - NJ.com