Johnson as Mark Kerr in ‘The Smashing Machine’ Credit – Courtesy of A24<\/p>\n
B<\/span>enny Safdie\u2019s The Smashing Machine\u2014premiering here at the Venice Film Festival<\/a>\u2014is satisfying as much for what it doesn\u2019t do as for what it does. Safdie, who also wrote the script, tells the story of how real-life mixed-martial artist, UFC champion, and all-around bruiser Mark Kerr won worldwide fame, tumbled down a rabbit hole of opioid addiction, and clawed his way back to sanity and success. And that\u2019s about it: Safdie doesn\u2019t tie the story into excessively dramatic pretzel knots, and he doesn\u2019t try to apply any Rocky-style narrative formulas, as effective as those formulas can be. Instead, he simply trusts his star, Dwayne Johnson<\/a>, to lead us through Kerr\u2019s story of escalating fame, addiction, and recovery, without resorting to the clich\u00e9s of so many addiction-recovery dramas. Kerr kicks his habit early in the film\u2014there\u2019s no real spiraling decline, no horrific bottoming out. So what we see through most of the movie is a champion who\u2019s fallen and gotten back up again, asking, Now what? It\u2019s the persistent drive of the \u201cNow what?\u201d that makes the movie work.<\/p>\n The movie opens circa 1997, with Johnson\u2019s Kerr at the top of his game. We hear an announcer running through the play-by-play as we see Kerr squeezing and pummeling the bejesus out of an opponent. \u201cWow! A magnificent knee to the face, and another knee to the face!\u201d For the uninitiated\u2014before I saw The Smashing Machine, that would be me\u2014the \u201cknee to the face\u201d move was at one time a popular feature of mixed-martial arts, though it has since been essentially banned in the UFC. If you don\u2019t care for fighting as a spectator sport, it\u2019s excruciating to watch. It looks like it really, really hurts, and also like it could kill you. (No wonder Senator John McCain tried to get the MMA banned in 1996, having seen a UFC match and deeming it \u201chuman cockfighting.\u201d) But another feature of MMA, at least as it’s depicted in The Smashing Machine, is that guys who engage in this punishing sport are likely to bounce back up even after defeat, treating their opponent as a pal rather than a sworn enemy. Even as they strive to inflict maximum pain on one another, they have a lot invested in treating the whole thing as just good fun\u2014though the desire to win dwarfs everything else, and that\u2019s certainly true of Kerr.<\/p>\n Read more: <\/strong>Benny Safdie on Playing the Villain in Happy Gilmore 2\u2014And Christopher Nolan Telling Him to Get in Shape for The Odyssey<\/a><\/p>\n Blunt and Johnson in ‘The Smashing Machine’Courtesy of A24<\/span><\/p>\n Kerr has a girlfriend, Dawn, played beautifully by Emily Blunt<\/a>. She\u2019s supportive and dutiful, but living with a driven athlete\u2014particularly one who happens to also be an addict\u2014is largely a pain in the ass. Kerr berates her after she mixes up a power-smoothie for him, using the ingredients he preferred yesterday instead of the new combination of bananas, whole milk, and protein powder he\u2019s dreamed up without telling her. She rolls her eyes, but we can see how his irritability, his persnicketiness, is wearing her down.<\/p>\n On the flip side, she sometimes babies him in a way he finds emasculating. This is a couple in search of a happy medium and failing to find it, possibly because there\u2019s no such thing. When Kerr loses a match, breaking a long, impressive winning streak, he finally realizes the opioids he\u2019s been stockpiling and abusing are doing him more harm than good. He goes into rehab and emerges with the determination to stay clean\u2014and that, too, annoys Dawn, who sees his newfound resolve as sanctimonious. These characters don\u2019t always behave as we want them to; they feel lived-in, not written, with flaws and attributes that chime with things we see in our family, our friends, ourselves. At one point Kerr, in Japan for a match, steps into a store filled with delicate, beautiful things. He chooses a luminous ceramic bowl as a gift for Dawn, then impulsively adds a silk scarf, plucking it from a table and handing it to the saleswoman. \u201cThis too,\u201d he says. \u201cMy girlfriend loves colors.\u201d I mean, who doesn\u2019t love colors? But there\u2019s something touching about the way this hulking hunk of a man allows himself to lean into tenderness.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n