Smile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures)
Starring: Sosie Bacon, Kyle Gallner, Jessie T. Usher, Kal Penn, Gillian Zinser, Robin Weigert, Caitlin Stasey, Nick Arapoglou, Rob Morgan, Dora Kiss, Judy Reyes
Director: Parker Finn
Running Time: 115 Minutes
Rating: R for Brutal Bloody Ends
Release Date: September 30, 2022
What’s It About?: Demons sure love their chain letters, don’t they? And they’re pretty fastidious about keeping up with today’s technology, so they don’t need to come in the form of an actual piece of paper anymore. A videotape certainly sufficed in the VHS era. Or a roll in the hay is an evergreen opportunity to pass the curse along, since people are always having sex. And certainly, that there chain letter needn’t even take physical form, as it can spread through a series of premonitions, or in the case of Smile, via the creepiest facial expressions imaginable. That’s the conundrum that psychiatrist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) finds herself in, after she witnesses a patient take her own life while sporting the most disturbing grin she’s ever seen. Rose then ends up haunted by the same evil entity, and she’s got about a week to figure it all out before it consumes her completely.
What Made an Impression?: One word immediately comes to mind to describe the viewing experience of Smile: frustrating. But I suspect that that may be by design. This evil has a knack for finding overworked, traumatized individuals. Rose is regularly putting in 80-hour workweeks in a job that takes a heavy emotional toll, and on top of that, much of her life has been shaped by an abusive childhood during which her mother overdosed right in front of her. And the patient (Caitlin Stasey) whose death she witnessed was a PhD student, so I imagine she wasn’t getting a whole lot of sleep either. This all makes for a messy formula where Rose doesn’t have the wherewithal to explain what’s happening to her, and everyone in her life either doesn’t have the patience to understand, or if they do have the patience, it doesn’t really matter because it’s too far beyond anything they themselves have ever experienced anyway.
Contrast that setup to Smile‘s closest analogue, The Ring, in which Naomi Watts plays a take-charge investigative reporter who does everything she can to avoid being a curse’s next victim. Rose, meanwhile, is in no shape to be able to pull anything like that off. Although, to be fair to her and all the other victims, the implication is that there truly is no escape from this deadly fate. (There may be a possible exception reminiscent of the rules of the Final Destination, but that option doesn’t exactly come off as particularly appealing either.) Smile would certainly be a lot more fun if we had a more well-rested, defiant protagonist. But I don’t want to dismiss it completely, because it strikes me as a telling portrait of the fog of living through mental illness and post-trauma. It’s painful to witness, but worth digesting.
Smile is Recommended If You Like: The Ring, It Follows, The Grudge, Final Destination (Spoiler Alert?)
Grade: 3 out of 5 Smiles
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