At the Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2025, Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, surprised everyone by unveiling The Smashing Machine, Benny Safdie’s 2025 film where he plays MMA pioneer Mark Kerr. Ovationed for fifteen minutes, the actor allows himself vulnerability and a marked physical transformation. The challenge is an artistic shift, far from blockbusters. This could position him in the race for awards. Indeed, this happens before the French release on October 29.
The facts: a fifteen-minute ovation and tears at the Mostra
September 1, 2025, at the Venice Film Festival (82nd edition), Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock unveiled the world premiere of ‘The Smashing Machine’ by Benny Safdie. At the end of the screening in Sala Grande, the film received a standing ovation of about 15 minutes, a tribute that visibly moved the actor, to the point of wiping away a few tears, alongside Emily Blunt and Mark Kerr himself. The moment marked the opening of an unexpected critical campaign for a star more associated with mainstream blockbusters than intimate dramas.
A role against type: Mark Kerr and the flip side of the myth
In ‘The Smashing Machine’ with Dwayne Johnson, the actor portrays Mark Kerr, a pioneer of mixed martial arts (MMA) and a two-time heavyweight tournament winner of the UFC in the late 1990s. Far from a triumphant story, the script explores the pressure of high-level competition, addiction to painkillers, and a troubled romantic relationship – themes already exposed by the 2002 HBO documentary, The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr (Wikipedia). Safdie’s film does not sanctify the ring: it focuses on the damaged body, doubts, and how a champion tries to stay afloat when victory slips away.
Emily Blunt plays Dawn Staples, Kerr’s partner. Her performance accompanies the film’s shift towards intimacy. Indeed, addiction is not only told in terms of falls and relapses. It also translates into the collateral damage on those around. The on-screen chemistry reunites Johnson and Blunt after Jungle Cruise and fuels a less muscular, more vulnerable performance that the actor claims as a decisive step in his career.
An assumed transformation: prosthetics, wig, and discipline
To portray Kerr, Johnson agreed to alter his physique. Additionally, he endured a daily prosthetic makeup routine. He mentions spending three to four hours each morning in front of the mirror. He uses a dozen prosthetics to thicken or alter certain features. Moreover, he wears a wig to recreate the look of the late 1990s. Far from the imposing physiques he has accustomed us to, the actor works on vulnerabilities here. Indeed, shortness of breath, stiffness, and scars tell the story of a career worn out by battles.
This transformation is not just cosmetic: it changes his acting. Johnson abandons punchlines and omnipotence for a range mixing restraint, hesitations, bursts of anger, and moments of tenderness. Benny Safdie, making his first solo feature film, sets up a nervous realism in the staging, close to a documentary approach: cameras up close, tight frames, noise of the arenas and silence of the locker rooms.
Emily Blunt, a decisive partner, Benny Safdie, an awaited solo
Emily Blunt plays a key role both on screen and in preparation. She claims to have wanted to honor a real and living character, without embellishments. Furthermore, Johnson emphasizes the trust that helped him step out of his usual range. The duo serves a director known for ‘Good Time’ and ‘Uncut Gems’ (co-directed with his brother Josh), whose tension and social acuity are evident. But ‘The Smashing Machine’ marks a break: Safdie orchestrates alone a portrait of a man where the obsession to win devours private life.
Schedule and distribution of The Smashing Machine: France on October 29, 2025
The film was screened in Venice in official competition on September 1, 2025, before a theatrical release in the United States on October 3, 2025 (studio A24). In France, the release is announced for October 29, 2025, with Zinc handling distribution. The initial feedback from the Mostra, between ovation and praise for the performances of the two actors, fuels the buzz of an awards season where Johnson, rarely awarded for a dramatic role, could appear. Without presuming the awards, the alignment ticks several boxes. It is indeed a reference festival. Moreover, it’s an independent studio experienced in auteur film campaigns. Additionally, this role is both physical and emotional.
From WWE to Hollywood: what "The Rock" brings to the role
Before becoming one of the world’s box office stars, Dwayne Johnson was a wrestler in the WWE, where he was a ten-time world heavyweight champion (eight-time WWF/WWE champion and two-time WCW champion). This experience of the ring, of rising trajectories and brutal falls, informs his performance: Johnson knows the drama of the scrutinized body, the unspoken pains, the virile myth that must be maintained in public. The increased fame through social media adds a pressure that the film, by extension, puts into perspective. Indeed, his Instagram account gathers over 390 million followers (@therock/?hl=en). What price is one willing to pay to stay at the top?
The early days of MMA: a sport under construction
The Mark Kerr in the film is from a time when MMA was finding its rules and limits. On the American scene and then in Japan (Pride FC), fights followed one another, as did injuries. Painkillers became both a crutch and a trap, and the Kerr-Staples couple wavered. By revisiting these years, ‘The Smashing Machine’ joins the lineage of battered sports portraits – reminiscent of The Wrestler or Raging Bull – but with a contemporary grounding: the era of global leagues and viral images, where performance is an endless stream.
What The Rock’s transformation says
Dwayne Johnson’s transformation does not erase his popular successes (Jumanji, Fast & Furious, Red Notice). It broadens the scope. The icon of family entertainment, producer within Seven Bucks Productions, takes an artistic risk: showing himself as brittle, troubled, sometimes lost. This openness to emotion is as important as the pounds lost or the hours of makeup. It feeds a different imagination of strength: no longer an unshakeable rock, but a man who holds on while faltering.
Perspectives: from Venice to theaters
‘The Smashing Machine’ does not tell of invincibility, it tells what it costs to embody it. By measuring himself against Mark Kerr, Dwayne Johnson turns his legend around: behind "The Rock," an actor ready to weaken his image to better reinvent it. The Venice Film Festival offered him a baptism by fire, the theatrical release will tell if this promise holds over time. For now, curiosity is high, and the gamble – that of a displayed vulnerability – largely won.