Smashed - 2012 - 3½ Stars

Actors:  Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul
Director:  James Ponsoldt

One of the temptations of film is to jump through time.  We might be shown a relationship, then later on in the film, we might see its beginning.  It's tempting because stories are fun and it's a little thrill for the audience to see what the characters don't know, that this is going somewhere they can't imagine.  But life is always going somewhere people can't imagine.  One of the strengths of Smashed is that it lets us imagine what happened off-screen, because a lot of what goes on happens off-screen.

There's a few stock 'movie' things in here - conflicts resolve in ways that are telegraphed ahead of time.  And the film is so small-scale that sometimes it doesn't feel lived in - there's so few actors used that it feels like we're not getting the full picture of who these people are.  Still, it has strong performances and solid writing, and certainly does not outstay its welcome.