Grin and Bear It
For those who have experienced it, trauma becomes a dormant passenger. Quietly lurking, but always there behind the curtain. A pile of kindling awaiting a match. In Parker Finn’s supernatural-psychological horror movie Smile, trauma manifests as a suicide curse. When a therapist’s patients brutally kills herself in front of her, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) becomes the latest victim in a trauma cycle where a compulsion to commit suicide is passed on like a baton. In the world of Smile, if you watch someone kill themselves in spectacularly horrific fashion, you become doomed to die next.
Based on Finn’s 2020 short film Laura Hasn’t Slept, Smile doesn’t pull its punches, committing fully to the dark subject matter and troubling material. Finn’s liberal use of grisly images, shocking gore, and haunting specters make Smile a visual horror-show that doesn’t fully jive with the “major studio horror movie” trappings. This is particularly shocking coming from Paramount studios, who are traditionally pretty commercial – and therefore somewhat reserved when it comes to the bloodletting – with their horror output (think Scream, A Quiet Place, and the Friday the 13th series.)
By contrast, Smile is dark, it’s visceral, and is more aligned with the tastes of the horror aficionados and arthouse horror scene than your usual studio standard fare. Keeping in line with that thinking, unlike many horror movies from major studios, this one makes full use of its R-rating, going to extremes not often seen in major releases.
Bacon offers an excellent turn as the therapist trying to piece everything together while also undergoing her own mental unraveling. Keeping within the boundaries of supernatural horror movie tropes, Rose must uncover the mechanics of the curse in order to best it, lest she become the next victim and be destined to kill herself in heinous fashion. The script, also from Finn, plays with the dichotomy of insanity: how when institutions deem someone “crazy”, everything they say and do subsequently looks “crazy.”
It doesn’t matter if you are a celebrated doctor, lauded member of the community, promising wunderkind, once people think you’ve lost it, there’s little you can do to unring that particular bell. Especially when you’re dealing with an honest to goodness curse. Despite being a respected therapist, as Bacon becomes victim to supernatural events, everyone in her circle looks at her and sees a doctor pushed to the limit. They see past baggage and unresolved trauma finally catching up to her. They see a crazy lady finally coming apart at the seams. Tragic. But nothing out of the ordinary.
[READ MORE: Our review of Zach Cregger’s suspenseful and campy horror joint ‘Barbarian’]
Formally, Smile plays like a mash-up of The Ring and It Follows though is decidedly more bloody and darkly funny than those two efforts combined. While Smile may lack the undeniable style of Gore Verbinski or the thematic sturdiness of David Robert Mitchell’s cult favorite, Smile smartly plays into the black comedy barbarism of it all, oscillating between tense moments and go-for-broke gore in such a way that demands a comical breathe of relief from any involved audience member. Finn has a sense of humor – the title of the film is assurance enough of that – and he’s never coy about laughing at his own ridiculous creation.
Mileage varies with the rest of the supporting cast with Kyle Gallner shining the brightest of the bunch as ex-romanic influence Joel. There’s also Deadwood’s Robin Weigert appearing as Rose’s former therapist and concerned Dr. Madeline Northcott, The Boys’ Jessie T User as Rose’s meticulous but cold fiancé Trevor, and Kal Penn making a rarified appearance as Rose’s concerned boss. But the real measure of success for any performer in Smile is how absolutely terrifying a smile each of the cast members can conjure and none can best Kevin Keppy’s brief turn as (and I’m quoting from IMDB here) “Nightmare Mom”. You will remember Nightmare Mom – mark my words.
[READ MORE: Our review of Ti West’s excellent horror origin story ‘Pearl‘ starring Mia Goth]
The proceedings can get a bit long in the third act – the nearly two-hour runtime becomes more and more apart as Smile closes in on the finish line – but Finn correctly decides to cap things off with a killer ending that won’t soon be forgotten. Where he could have let his foot off the gas and doomed Smile to being a decent little horror number, he instead shifts to overdrive and kicks things into overdrive, delivering a go-for-broke slice of horror camp that’s all but destined to make Smile a cult classic for years to come.
CONCLUSION: A surprisingly brutal and weird horror movie from a major studio, Smile has something to say about the “grin and bear it” mantra of traumatized Americans but is most fun when it’s just being bizarre and totally blood-splattered. Sosie Bacon has never been better.
B+
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