‘The Smashing Machine’ review: Dwayne Johnson Embraces Vulnerability

From the very first frame of director Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, you can tell he and his crew aren’t trying to make a traditional sports biopic. It’s evident in how he and cinematographer Maceo Bishop frame the matches wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) partakes in. Whereas in traditional sports biopics (or any sports movie, really), the camera is a healthy distance away from the action so that viewers can see the spectacle in its entirety, Bishop and Safdie put the camera right in the middle of the sweaty, bloody bodies fighting for dominance in the MMA ring.

The camera will often be nestled in the crook of someone’s elbow, fixated on the pores of a face trapped in a headlock, or following the blade of someone’s foot moments before impact. These images remove the cinematic grandeur of what we witness. It’s hard to imagine the last time an MMA film felt so inert, but Safdie’s stripped-down, intimate approach enables a deeper dive into the character’s psychosis. Rather than tell the typical story of someone who experienced hardship and then overcame obstacles to become a champion, The Smashing Machine is about a man who has made winning his identity, so much so that he has a hard time living with himself when he loses.

Johnson embodies the physicality of Kerr well enough, but the real test is in the moments outside the ring. Here, he thankfully sheds his ego and, by embracing an honest vulnerability, can get at deeper, truer emotions. (Seemingly) gone is the actor famous for having clauses built into his contracts that state he can’t lose fights on screen. By contrast, Kerr is someone who’s defined by his losses as much as his wins, and it seems that on a meta level, Johnson is willing to let his impenetrable facade weather a few blows.

He adeptly subverts his charm throughout the film, to both affecting and frightening effect. Kerr is a gentle giant who worries about crafting his smoothie with the right ingredients so that his “tummy” isn’t disturbed. At the same time, he’ll rip apart a door in frustration during a fight with his girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt). It’s debatable whether Johnson has truly transformed for the role, or if he’s simply allowed himself to access a humility that all other actors have to experience. But it’s still fresh to see him own Kerr’s most unsavory and grating qualities.

The film follows Kerr through his formative years in the late ’90s. In an early fight in Japan, an opponent beats Kerr using a blatantly illegal technique. Kerr contests, and while the match is labeled as a “no-decision” (meaning Kerr didn’t technically lose), Kerr’s world is wrecked by the outcome. For someone who is sustained on the high of total victory, he can’t bring himself to admit he was beaten. For a season, he becomes addicted to various drugs and painkillers, eventually fighting to get clean to prepare for the Grand Prix tournament. Meanwhile, his former coach and friend, Mark Coleman, also prepares to fight in the same contest, with the two bracing themselves for an inevitable showdown.

The film is Johnson’s showcase through and through, which makes the underdeveloped characters only stand out in comparison. Blunt feels like literal window dressing, as Safdie and costume designer Heidi Bivens dress her in skimpy outfits that feel more like ogling than conveying any sort of personality for her character. It’s a shame, as Dawn and Mark’s dynamic, if handled with more care, could have been a rich showcase for Blunt’s talents.

As Kerr embarks on recovery in the film, he finds it difficult to be around Dawn, who doesn’t change her lifestyle of casual partying and drinking. This tension could have been a venue to explore ideas around agency versus accountability, and what partners owe their significant others who are in recovery. But Safdie’s film doesn’t really attempt to deal with the complexity here, and is simply content to frame Dawn as just one annoyance (or shiny accessory) in Kerr’s life that causes him to spiral further.

There are occasional moments that get at genuine pathos, such as a sequence where Kerr asks Dawn to take a photo of him and his opponents, deliberately excluding her from the picture. She obeys, and we see a single tear fall from her eye, ruining her mascara in the process. Safdie fills the film with moments like these, but he’s deemed subtlety sufficient, robbing the opportunity for Blunt to depict more of Dawn’s interiority.

In an early scene, we see Kerr in the waiting room of a doctor’s office making small talk with other patients. When an elderly woman asks, “Do you hate each other when you fight?” Kerr wryly replies, “absolutely not.” We know at this point that, despite Kerr’s attempts to frame his fights as empty showmanship, what goes on in the ring is deeply personal. The devastation of loss is so seismic because he has been trained to only feel worthy through victory, making the ring not just a sport, but a battle to believe that he is worthy of existing. Warning against the danger of conflating identity with performance is not exactly a novel idea, and Safdie’s muted approach may not work for all. But the vessel he’s crafted with The Smashing Machine allows that message to hit harder than even the most riveting of sports films.

The Smashing Machine debuted at the Venice International Film Festival, and was reviewed at the Toronto International Film Festival. An A24 production, it debuts in theaters on October 3.