For most of his career, Dwayne Johnson has been hanging from the edge of CGI buildings, fighting flora and fauna on jungle cruises, and saving his various different families from the most preposterous of catastrophes. In other words, he has been packed away in a labelled box – though never a bad performance, it is difficult to distinguish his acting chops from what are inherently bad films. With The Smashing Machine, Benny Safdie offers The Rock what he offered Adam Sandler with Uncut Gems – a truly dramatic role to get stuck into, and a way out, in the form of a reprise of a 2002 documentary of the same name which followed mixed martial artist Mark Kerr’s career and opioid addiction. This is certainly a career best for Johnson, and what with the lengthy makeup process and subject matter, a potential Oscar nomination may follow suit – but though moving and vulnerable, and supported by a beautiful chemistry with Emily Blunt, who plays girlfriend Dawn, The Smashing Machine never goes beyond its excellent ensemble.
A struggle with pace pronounces itself in the very early stages of Safdie’s latest – a fight, or as we are to find out, “the” fight, results in Kerr’s first loss and his ensuing downfall, both from a headspace and addiction perspective. Yet there is very little to indicate that this first fight, featured in the first twenty minutes, is the inciting incident that is to jumpstart the narrative – from here, Kerr lapses into medication, and the ins and outs between 1997 and 2000 become difficult to follow. In other words, it is never entirely clear at what stage of rehabilitation he is in, a pace that is no doubt acceptable for a documentary that has interviews and factual cutaways to support it, but that does not adapt well to a dramatized biopic expected to follow a certain arc. Amidst Kerr’s turmoil dances his relationship with Dawn, a disjointed affair even Blunt cannot save – while it is obvious the two are hot and cold with each other, an otherwise excellent chemistry is dismembered in this back and forth, the natural lull of their relationship lost to an unclear chronology. Dawn is erratic and caring, Kerr is in and out of rehab (or is he?) – their arguments and good times alike are surprising, incoherent. What becomes clear is that to Kerr, no one other than a wrestler can understand the “orgasmic” feeling of being in the ring, something he grows to resent Dawn for, excluding her from his world. In many ways, his determination to communicate something so alien is equal to his indelible determination to win, an effort brilliantly supported by Safdie’s script – there is something incredibly raw about Kerr, and despite the many violent outbreaks, something deeply likeable. He, along with Dawn and fellow wrestler and friend Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader, real-life wrestler and natural newcomer), form a trio that hold space and attention – there is something deeply moving in their eyes, so hurt and yet so determined. The physical vs. vocal balance teeters, but unlike many other sports films (see The Iron Claw), Safdie is not interested in portrayed sportsmen as immoveable, emotionless beings. On the contrary, Kerr is quick to communicate, and even quicker to tear up when things go awry, whether with Dawn or in the ring. It’s deeply refreshing, and it makes his moments of happiness – in particular a beautiful scene at a funfair, in which he reluctantly sits out of a ride he is too nervous to go on (“I am simply choosing not to”, he tells the amused ride attendant) – that little bit more poignant, a faint glimmer in the hardest of times. And yet, after all that, Kerr’s commitment to the sport itself still feels strangely empty as he implores Dawn to just, please, for once, understand – perhaps it is the nature of the pacing, perhaps it is that Safdie’s script takes away from the physical in favour of the dialogic, skipping a box along the way. Or perhaps, it is that, like its characters, The Smashing Machine never quite finds the right way to communicate.
