In a strong year for horror films, “Smile’s” marketing helps it stand out. At televised sporting events, performers stood amid the crowd and gave huge rigid smiles for the camera. In this full-length debut from writer-director Parker Finn, suicidal people have this big grin plastered on their face as they kill themselves.
Bringing home the Bacon
“Smile” is driven by a strong lead turn by Sosie Bacon, beneficiary of Kevin Bacon’s and Kyra Sedgwick’s acting DNA, and a grim mood. Bacon’s Rose, a budding psychiatrist, often peers into darkened doorways in her house and hears a voice softly calling her name. One jump scare got me.
Whether you find “Smile” scary might depend on how terrified you are of frozen facial expressions. I’ve missed out on a lot of clown horror because I lack the gene that makes me find clowns scary. Similar situation here.
“Smile” (2022)
Director: Parker Finn
Writer: Parker Finn
Stars: Sosie Bacon, Jesse T. Usher, Kyle Gallner
The story and themes aren’t as original as the marketing. “Smile” effectively captures how a person deals through the years with a traumatic event. Rose’s situation is consistently sympathetic, although extreme in how everyone concludes she is crazy.
In this regard, Jesse T. Usher gets a particularly thankless role as worthless fiancé Trevor. Kyle Gallner’s Joel, Rose’s embittered ex, eventually emerges as a helper, but even he is cold toward her. Finn douses Rose’s journey in fatalism; a logical instinct, but it also makes the proceedings a little flat.
(SPOILERS FOLLOW.)
‘Ring’ around Rosie (Spoilers)
Whether you merely appreciate “Smile” as a one-off horror diversion, or whether you find it reaches the next level, might depend on how familiar you are with “The Ring” trilogy. And also “The Grudge” saga and “It Follows” and “The Invisible Man” and the episode of “The Haunting of Hill House” called “The Bent-Neck Lady” and every movie where a woman might be crazy but is probably not. But “The Ring” is the big one.
“Smile” uses the same premise of a passed-on curse. In this case, if you witness a traumatic suicide, you are cursed. The rules aren’t as crisp as in “The Ring,” where you’ll be killed by the swampy ghost girl if you don’t get someone else to watch the video in seven days.
Here, you get further traumatized – apparitions stand in dark corners of your house and whisper your name, and the line between reality and dreams blurs. Eventually the spirit possesses you, you kill yourself while smiling in front of a witness, and the witness catches the curse.
Exacerbated trauma (Spoilers)
Coincidentally (but it’s the reason we’re following Rose, as opposed to another victim in the chain), Rose’s mom (Dora Kiss) committed suicide when Rose was 10, and it sparked Rose into her career as a counselor of troubled people.
Rose’s inner journey mirrors the curse’s rules; the horror premise brings to the fore inner struggles that are already there. In this regard, “Smile” is more personal than “The Ring,” “The Grudge” and “It Follows,” where the victims are mostly random.
Nonetheless, my familiarity with “The Ring” hurt my enjoyment of “Smile.” Before the opening credits, I knew this was a passed-along-curse story. Soon after, I knew trauma was the core theme. I was never bored, but I was hoping for more layers.
It’s OK to borrow from other films, but Finn’s film needed to put more of its own stamp on the narrative. “Smile” is well-made enough to be worthy of a smirk, but not a teeth-bearing grin.