Smile (2022)

 

**This post contains spoilers**

The Story- Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey), with an unusual smile on her face, commits suicide in front of Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon). After Laura’s death, Rose experiences a series of strange occurrences, haunted by smiling faces and fatal threats. Frantically scrambling to find answers, Rose eventually learns she’s been cursed by an unknown entity.

Joel (Kyle Gallner), a detective and Rose’s ex-boyfriend, steps up to help after Rose realizes she can’t trust her fiancé, Trevor (Jessie T. Usher), her therapist, Dr. Northcott (Robin Weigert), her sister, Holly (Gillian Zinser), Holly’s husband, Greg (Nick Arapoglou), and her boss, Dr. Desai (Kal Penn). Can Rose and Joel solve the mystery behind the deadly curse before it’s too late?

My Thoughts- Rose slowly sinks into a deep hole after the curse latches on to her. Sosie Bacon does a wonderful job of showing how Rose unravels step by step. Rose starts out as this hardworking therapist with a good heart, but towards the end, she’s a complete mess, because the curse sucks the life out of you. The confusion, the anger, the paranoia, the desperation, and the sadness puts a stranglehold on Rose’s spirit. Rose is dealing with a whirlwind of emotions, fighting off bad memories from her childhood, and Bacon superbly captures each stage of Rose’s downward spiral.

Kyle Gallner’s Joel comes off as someone, who’s kind of dopey at first, and a bit awkward. As the story progresses, you’ll quickly realize Joel still genuinely cares about Rose. Joel is a good and down to earth guy, and Joel settles into the role of an unconventional sidekick, who wants to do whatever he can to help. A solid performance from Gallner, complete with a handful of funny moments, when Joel is clearly confused about what’s going on with Rose.

SMILE! After the first trailer for Smile was released, I was kind of worried the smiling faces would be too silly or goofy, but that’s not the case here. The scene, where Laura commits suicide sets the precedent, a clear visual of insanity that signals the victim is too far gone. There’s just something eerie and very creepy about the smiling faces throughout the movie. Seeing those wide cheek to cheek smiles serves as a warning sign that something bad is about to happen, or it’s another sign the entity is tightening its grip on the current target.  

A big thumbs up for writer/director Parker Finn’s approach to the curse and the entity. Why? Because there’s no way you can see it coming. 

The cursed characters in Smile didn’t take unnecessary risks, and they didn’t knowingly do something stupid. Going to a haunted house, digging up someone’s grave, or reading passages from an evil book, or any of the other usual horror movie missteps that could’ve been easily avoided. Just imagine this, you’re minding your own business, or going through your normal routines, and BAM! Someone, who’s cursed violently commits suicide in front of you, and now you’re stuck with the curse. 

Through the performances from Sosie Bacon, Caitlin Stasey, Rob Morgan, and  Judy Reyes, you can see how the curse is capable of ruining someone’s life at different stages. With Bacon, you get to see how everything spirals out of control from start to finish. 

Surviving the curse? Yeah, that’s not all that it’s cracked up to be either. Robert (Morgan) is a broken mess of a man, stuck in prison, because there’s only one way (kill another person to pass the curse to a living witness) to truly escape the curse. If you’re in Laura Weaver’s spot before her demise, then it’s too late. Not enough time to explain the complexities of the curse, or enough time for anyone else to grasp what’s going on. Simple as that. 

But let’s not forget about what the curse does to family members and spouses. Victoria Munoz (Reyes) witnessed her husband, Gabriel’s (Felix Melendez Jr.) descent into madness firsthand. She’s still heartbroken and depressed over Gabriel’s death, and the flashback scene, where Victoria has to identify Gabriel’s corpse, including his mangled and disfigured face? Yikes! One of the more memorable gruesome and gory moments throughout the movie.  

“You can’t escape your own mind, Rose!” Another good layer for the curse comes into play, when it’s revealed the entity feeds off of trauma to grow stronger. Rose is still haunted by what happened to her mother during her childhood. It’s not too hard to connect the dots for Rose being a workaholic, specifically as a therapist, to her mother dealing with mental health issues. Rose couldn’t save her mother as a child, BUT maybe she can save her patients as an adult. 

It doesn’t matter how far you run, or if you try to hide and isolate yourself from other people. If you’re still holding on to traumatic events, or the loss of loved ones, the entity will sniff it out and relentlessly attack. That’s truly terrifying.

Smile takes a layered approach to mental illnesses, and how people react to someone with mental health problems. Rose starts losing it. She’s cursed, but she should be able to rely on Trevor and her family for support, right? Nope. Rose is almost instantly dismissed as a crazy person. Trevor, instead of showing compassion, scolds Rose for possibly having mental health issues. To make matters worse, Trevor is paranoid about the hereditary connection between Rose and her mother, and Rose possibly inheriting her mother’s sickness. 

Jackson’s (Holly’s son) birthday party is a great scene. Rose has a complete breakdown, after Jackson opens his present, and it’s revealed what happened to Rose’s cat, Mustache. No one asks if Rose is okay. No one tries to help her, including her own sister and her brother-in-law. They’re scared of Rose, and nobody wants to go near her. 

Smile does a good job of showing how other people, even those closest to you, won’t hesitate to shun or completely shut you out of their lives, if they know, or even suspect your dealing with mental issues. You’re basically treated like someone, who’s suffering from a deadly virus: go away, far away, and don’t come back until you’re normal again. 

Remember, Rose is a therapist. Rose treats people with mental illnesses for a living, so how does she feel, when she’s accused of being a nutcase, or having to deal with being labeled as someone, who’s sick in the head? It’s a jarring experience for her, you can see how much it hurts Rose, and kudos to Parker Finn for working a big mindfuck into the story. 

Rose returns to her childhood home to face the entity! After a struggle, Rose FINALLY defeats her demons, or did she? One final good fake-out to end the movie shows Rose’s plan failed, and she eventually succumbs to the entity’s constant attacks and mind games. 

Teasing a peaceful Rose enjoying her triumphant victory, and Rose letting go of the guilt about her mother’s death (as a child, Rose could’ve called for help as her mother was dying, but she ran away)? It was a perfect ending, maybe too perfect, and that’s why the big swerve really works. 

Rose returning to her childhood home, where the trauma started, and choosing to bravely fight the entity wasn’t enough. Rose finally cracks, when the entity, posing as Joel, reveals itself to her. That was it. Joel was the last person Rose felt comfortable enough to trust, so the last line of defense in her mind was gone. The image of Rose lighting herself on fire to commit suicide, while a horrified and stunned Joel watches to end the movie is something to remember.

The reveal for the entity’s true form was phenomenal. The pale, tall, and lanky version of the entity, resembling Rose’s mother, works as a physical manifestation of the big bad demon that continued to haunt Rose well into her adult years. The entity’s true form? A massive jaw-dropper. The monstrous size, the rows of mouths stacked on top of each other, and the look of wet, fresh blood covering its entire body! Great practical effects, and the appearance of the entity is truly a horrifying sight, definitely worth saving for the final moments of the movie. 

Smile has one predictable jump scare that you’d expect from a mainstream horror film, but it’s still a damn good movie. Consistently tense, just the right amount of bloody violence and gruesome gore, and the fake-outs are superb. There’s a scene where Rose, trapped in an illusion/nightmare, imagines herself killing Carl (one of her patients) to pass the curse to Dr. Desai, and Desai slowly rips off his own face! A good gory surprise, and it’s a callback to two similar moments (Dr. Parsons and Laura tearing the skin off of their faces) from the short film Laura Hasn’t Slept.

It’s not always easy to tell the differences between reality, and the entity’s mind games. Smile’s crafty methods for stringing you along until the reveal happens works, because each scenario is noticeably different throughout the movie. 

“Holly’s” head hanging upside down with a smile on her face is my only complaint for the fake-outs. Not because it’s bad, but they gave it away in the trailers! WHY would you give that one away? It would’ve been a great surprise. I understand the need to sell the movie, but come on now. 

Still, Smile is a refreshing horror flick, featuring a creative story, that’s loaded with some good emotional depth, because Smile is one of those horror films that simultaneously works as a psychological drama AND a horror film. Sosie Bacon is amazing in the leading role. A solid supporting cast, including Caitlin Stasey, Judy Reyes, Jack Sochet, and Kal Penn all delivering impactful performances with sporadic appearances, or a limited amount of screen time. Also, Smile easily has one of the best monster/demon reveals you’ll ever see.

Usually, I’m more on the one-and-done side for horror movies similar to Smile. Something good, with a fresh story, and a genuinely shocking ending? Leave it alone, and don’t touch it! That’s usually my first reaction, because it’s almost impossible to catch lightning in a bottle with more sequels. But Smile’s premise is full of potential to explore with more films, and different characters. I’ll always support more Smile sequels, and maybe a TV series? Okay, that’s probably going too far.

Rating- 8/10