Illusions are shattered in sobering 'Smashed'

• Stars: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul, Nick Offerman, Octavia Spencer
• *** out of four. Rated R; Runtime: 1 hour, 15 minutes; Opens Friday in select cities

Smashed (*** out of four; rated: R; opens Friday in select cities) is anything but a giddy good time.

The title conveys the crash that follows too many nights of boozy partying, as well as the way a career, a marriage and a soul can be broken into smithereens by alcoholism. It also alludes to the severing of ties that often must come with a newfound life of sobriety.

At the eye of the storm is a terrific performance by Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Kate, a young married first grade teacher enthusiastically devoted to her students. She is able to keep her raucous drinking separate from her time in the classroom — for a while. But it's clear that she can't outrun her demons for long.

Her drinking bouts are abetted by her husband Charlie (Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul), a sometime music writer with rich parents who enable his dilettante ways. Kate and Charlie spend the majority of their time together in a happily inebriated haze. In some ways they seem like free-wheeling college kids — except that they're thirtysomethings.

But there's a darker side as Kate slides frighteningly easily into a semi-derelict existence.

She is so often sloshed that she drinks whiskey from a flask in the parking lot of the school where she teaches. She is so hellbent on buying a couple bottles of wine at a convenience store after 2 a.m. that she grabs the bottles and runs out. This comes after publicly urinating in the store. She offers a bar patron a ride home, shares a crack pipe with the stranger and wakes up disoriented in the concrete wasteland known as the L.A. River.

Clearly she has a problem. Her husband tends to laugh it off, but she decides to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, at the behest of a school colleague (Parks and Recreation's Nick Offerman). She seeks out a friendly sponsor (Octavia Spencer) and things look up. Then a huge blow catapults her off the wagon.

While Smashed documents both the crazy highs and the terrifying lows of addiction, the story is primarily about commitment. Kate struggles in her relationship with her husband, who isn't keen on change, as well as with her determination to stay sober.

It's a clear-eyed view of what happens when one half of a couple decides to change and the other does not. But the film avoids painting the healthier option in golden tones. In fact, sobriety can seem rather dull compared with the light-hearted, if risky, times she and Charlie shared. Substantive change often involves repeated tries and failures, and James Ponsoldt, the director and co-writer (with Susan Burke), explores those efforts honestly.

Winstead is funny, smart and winning when playing sober and even manages to be likeable as the wasted Kate. She wrestles with self-loathing credibly. Unfortunately, Paul's man child character is not developed thoroughly enough, and the supporting players are even less dimensional.

Days of Wine and Roses this is not. This film is less emotionally fraught and bears a closer resemblance to Half Nelson in which Ryan Gosling brilliantly played a dedicated teacher trying to hide his drug use.With its gritty subject matter, lack of sensationalism and low- key style, Smashed is quietly affecting, though sometimes difficult to sit through. The saving grace is Winstead's smashing performance.

After watching Smashed, about the last thing viewers will want to do is go out for drinks.