Smashed

Between Beetlejuice and Batman, way back in 1988, Michael Keaton starred in Clean and Sober, the smoky, beige addiction drama by Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron. If those pop-culture mile markers are hazy or unknown to you, then you might be part of Generation Y and, therefore, ready for a 12-step primer geared to fit in the pocket of your skinny jeans. In director James Ponsoldt’s slim, stomach-churning Smashed, a terrific Mary Elizabeth Winstead (last seen in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) gives moving dimension to a pamphlet-scale character, a young schoolteacher prone to blackout binges but ready, maybe, to get help. Her husband (Aaron Paul, intoning variations on the anger and denial that are his specialties on Breaking Bad) is no help, and certainly no match for any AA sponsor played by Octavia Spencer. Smashed is bullish on recovery but bearish on young marriage.