The Smashing Machine (5/5 Stars)

The Smashing Machine takes its name from an early 2000s HBO documentary about the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter Mark Kerr. I found it in an odd place, Facebook, which makes me think like it won’t be there for very long. Having glanced at the documentary, I noticed several scenes that find themselves in the movie, so many that it is probably accurate to describe this movie as a dramatic adaptation of the documentary. The movie uses the scenes in the documentary as set pieces and then fills in the gaps where a documentary crew can’t go.

In a lot of ways, Mark Kerr is a man ahead of his time. He was one of the best mixed martial arts fighters at a time when the sport was very much in the shadow of boxing. There was a lot of potential in the sport, for instance it better answered the question of which man was the better fighter because it allowed so many fighting styles and relaxed so many rules. In boxing, all you can do is box. With mixed martial arts, you can be fighting karate, or boxing, or ju-jujitsu or something else. Mark Kerr, from Toledo, Ohio had a background as a free-style wrestler. And upon that basis he added a bunch of other things you can’t do in wrestling, like head-butting, and eye-gouging, and kneeing someone in the face. MMA would soon ban some of the more extreme moves, but while they are allowed, in the early days when it was a bloody free-for-all, apparently Mark Kerr was very good at it.

Mark Kerr also developed an addiction to pain-killers about twenty years before the opioid epidemic. So he was ahead of that trend too. When the documentary came out, it included scenes of Mark shooting up and also scenes of him in the hospital after an overdose knocked him unconscious. These scenes were apparently shown to Mark before the documentary was finalized and Mark was given the choice as to whether they would be included (I know this from Mark's recent interview with Joe Rogan). He okayed the inclusion of all the embarrassing stuff thinking that if people saw it they may not make the same mistakes that he did. He was a brave guy.

The movie was written and directed by Benny Safdie and stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Mark Kerr. This is Benny Safdie first feature film directing alone. He previously directed movies with his brother Josh Safdie. I've seen two very good movies from them, Good Time (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019). Interestingly, Josh Safdie has his first feature film without Benny coming out at the same time, Marty Supreme starring Timothee Chalamet. I have not seen that one, but I will soon and I expect to write a review about it. 

The Smashing Machine feels like it was made by people who admire Mark Kerr and want you to know more about him. Certainly, someone like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, one of the highest paid action stars in the world, does not need to take part in a small movie like this. He is doing it because he believes in the story. I’ve said this before about Dwayne Johnson: that he probably is a good actor, but it is hard to tell since his physical nature makes him hard to write a good role for. He is too physically imposing to be your stereotypical leading man but too nice looking to be a villain. Mark Kerr is one of those rare roles that are tailor made. Mark Kerr was a smashing machine but also, apparently, a soft-spoken nice guy outside the ring. There is a very good scene here where Dwayne Johnson strikes up a nice conversation with an elderly woman in a doctor’s office. I think there is credit to be given to certain actors that can pull off roles that very few other actors can even attempt (I’ve argued for more recognition for Jim Carrey in the past with this logic). Who other than Dwayne Johnson could have played this part? And not only that, keep in mind that Dwayne Johnson and Mark Kerr are about the same age so when Dwayne plays Mark, there is a quarter-century age difference. What over fifty-something actor can plausibly take on a twenty-something role, and without a shirt and in tight pants. I’m not saying give him an award but let’s not dismiss this very exceptional thing we are witnessing here.

If Dwayne is playing well within type, albeit in a dramatic and not action-oriented role, his romantic counterpart, Emily Blunt, is playing decidedly against type. Here is an actress that has played Queen Victoria and Mary Poppins, who is now playing Dawn Staples, the girlfriend of Mark Kerr, a well meaning but immature American. We have to give her a break because she is also twenty-something and doesn’t quite understand what Mark Kerr is going through, mostly because Mark is not the type of person who can really articulate what he is going through and why all of this is so important to him. They have the type of conversations that unnecessarily turn into fights because they aren’t successfully communicating with one another. It is a testament to the writing, yes, but especially the acting, because although the characters aren’t connecting, the audience at the same time understands that they are not and why they are not.

Shakespeare is great not simply because he used fancy words better than anybody else, but because he so successfully communicated what his characters were feeling. For the same reason, these scenes between Dwayne and Emily are great because the audience understands so much of what is going on. That the characters themselves can’t quite see it lends the scenes a certain tragic quality to it.

For those like me who did not know anything about Mark Kerr before watching this movie, the ending was a surprise. I didn’t know whether or not he won the big fight or how the result may have happened. The best sports movies do not rely on the outcome of the big contest. After all, movies simply cannot compete with real live sporting events in this regard. (Why watch something contrived to turn out a certain way, when you can watch real sports and actually feel the suspense.) So great sports movies use contests to get at something deeper. And The Smashing Machine is no exception. This entire movie is a relentless pursuit of competing at the highest levels and all the trials and tribulations that come with it. And the ending here, well, it is a sigh of relief, a relaxation. All your love and all your hate and all your memories and all your pain. You tried your best. It's time to let go.

The movie ends with a scene of the real Mark Kerr shopping for groceries in the supermarket on a bright sunny day in Arizona. He looks healthy. He looks happy.

If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You (4/5 Stars)

Per the audio commentary of Requiem for a Dream (2000), when Darren Aronofsky was adapting the novel into a screenplay, he made a realization about the fundamental nature of the plot. Requiem for a Dream was ostensibly a drama about four characters, each dealing with substance abuse, but the arc of the story more resembled a horror movie. That is, like a horror movie, at various twists and turns in the normal course of a plot, things kept on getting worse for the characters, like consistently getting worse. In realization of this, Darren Aronofsky leant into it and turned out a rather atypical movie. The lives of the characters unravelled in the manner of a horror plot, but without a stereotypical horror villain or even a monster (unless, of course, you count the refrigerator).

As a prime example of this, Aronofsky told a story about an actor who later said that the direction he had received from Aronofsky was the hardest direction he had ever received in his career. The scene is quick, and the actor plays one of the main character's doctor.  She is at the doctor's office for a check-up and she is presently suffering from her medication. The doctor comes in speaking and moving fast. He prescribes more pills and leaves. What was difficult about the direction is that Aronofsky told the actor to never look at his patient during the scene. This was difficult because it flies in face of every natural human instinct, especially those of a doctor. But the horror plot required it because if the doctor had noticed that his patient was experiencing terrible side effects from the medication, things wouldn’t have gotten even worse.

I was reminded of Requiem for a Dream when I watched If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and also various other movies in the limited universe of movies that look like dramas but work like horror movies (Safe 1995, The Father 2020) and also that one horror movie that is really just about sleep deprivation (The Badadook 2014). A woman named Linda (played by Rose Byrne) in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You with a daughter that is suffering from a mysterious illness that takes up all the time she has in which she isn’t already working as a professional therapist. Her husband is in the navy and available only by phone. She does not appear to have any other family or friends. Then she comes home one day to find that a giant leak has busted through the ceiling of her bedroom necessitating the evacuation of rented apartment to a nearby motel.

The writer and director of this movie is Mary Bronstein who also plays a role as the passive-aggressive Dr. Spring. She makes a very interesting choice in framing as most of the movie heavily relies on close-ups of Rose Byrne even in scenes which include her daughter (played by Delaney Quinn). Her daughter is not named, is never seen, and only makes her presence known by audibly complaining. This directorial choice greatly helps the build-up of tension in the plot. Speaking as a parent, I think one of the ways one’s child reduces the amount of annoyance/stress taking care of them entails, is by looking generally adorable. The nature of the mysterious illness also builds the tension. There isn’t much known about it other than Dr. Spring's diagnosis that the child needs to gain lots of weight quickly. This makes feeding the picky eater that much more of an ordeal.

Then there is all the therapy that takes place in this movie. But as amply demonstrated in this movie, therapy has its limits, and in certain circumstances is pointless. Therapy helps people who have enough time and money to meaningfully engage in it. To give an extreme example, if your country is experiencing a famine, it isn’t going to help to be able to talk to a therapist about how hungry you are. Therapy is something that balances an over-active mind in times of quiet. I am reminded of a great scene in As Good As it Gets (1997) when the mother (Helen Hunt) has an intense conversation about all sorts of fresh anxieties popping up in her mind because her continually sick child is no longer continually sick and thus is no longer monopolizing her attention span. Linda does not have mental issues. The terrible things that are happening in this movie are logistical and would burn out any normal person. What she needs is help, and she is not receiving it.

The therapy sessions are particularly interesting though because Linda is a therapist. In between her own work, she seeks therapy from a colleague, played by the late night talk show host Conan O’Brien in an inspired bit of casting. What she needs, her therapist cannot provide. (She primarily needs someone to take on a permanent shift in looking after her kid and to fix her ceiling so she can go home). He can’t give her what she needs and she gets increasingly distraught. But there is nothing that this therapist can say to her. She asks him to tell her what to do. He replies (correctly) that she should get some sleep. In one trying scene, I thought it might be a good idea if he gave her a hug, but that didn’t happen either.

This is a movie that relies on performances. Rose Byrne does a very good job and I expect she will receive awards recognition. It is one of those roles that is tough to go head-to-head with when comparing performances because this one requires more acting. Almost every scene is a difficult one. I think under the radar perhaps is the performance of Conan O’Brien who is an unlikely model of restraint in his scenes. Once more a comedian turns in a fine dramatic performance which could mean one of two things: 1) We should not underestimate comedians, or 2) dramatic performances aren’t so hard. This is writer/director Mary Bronstein’s first movie in fifteen years (she made a movie called Yeast in 2008 that I have never heard of). She should make more of them.