The Doctor’s Diagnosis: D
Smile was originally intended to go straight to streaming, but was upgraded to a theatrical release following test screenings with audience scores through the roof. This was apparently a good move because the film has been very well-received and the box office results are huge. I hate being that guy, but I honestly don’t understand what everyone is seeing in this movie. Smile is extremely derivative, most notably ripping off It Follows and The Ring, and lacks the characters and genuine fright of the films that it is imitating.
Sosie Bacon stars as Dr. Rose Cotter, a psychiatrist that witnesses the suicide of one of her patients. The patient claimed that she was being pursued by some sort of demon and then has a ghastly grin come over her face before slashing her own throat. In the following days, Rose starts seeing the same exaggerated smile on the face of people around her and begins to think that the patient may not be so crazy. She eventually discovers that she is the latest in a chain of people that have been haunted by this demon, none of the prior people have survived longer than a week and the only way out is to kill yourself (or someone else) with a witness so that the curse can be passed on.
In other words, Smile is basically just It Follows with trauma replacing sexually-transmitted diseases as the element to pass on the curse. There is also a striking resemblance to The Ring, as a character has a week to pass on a curse or die. I don’t immediately condemn a film, especially a horror film, for being derivative, but this is a bit much and invites some non-favorable comparisons that are difficult to ignore. If you are going to copy something, then you must at least do a good job of it. Smile is so inferior to those aforementioned movies that I couldn’t help just wish that I was watching It Follows instead. This has none of the atmosphere or creepy visuals of It Follows or The Ring, and often feels like a children’s version of those films.
So if Smile is lacking in atmosphere, characters and visuals, then what does it have? Jump scares. A ton of jump scares. I don’t think that five minutes go by in this movie without a cheap jump scare, most of which are choreographed to the point that there is no surprise. If you find obnoxious music stingers and quick camera cuts frightening, then this is the movie for you this Halloween season. I saw the film in a fairly packed theater and the audience was quite young and everyone seemed to be having a great time except for me, jumping out of their seats every thirty seconds. That’s more of an indictment of the audience than a compliment for the film, though, as the film’s effectiveness seems dependent on the audience never having seen a horror film before.
The film is also sketchy about the nature of the villain, seemingly making up (and changing) the rules to suit particular scenes. In It Follows (again, the comparison is impossible to avoid), there are simple rules: The monster walks in a straight line toward you and can take the form of anyone. Smile takes the notion that the monster can take any form, but the lore and rules are nebulous beyond that. I’m not sure how it is travelling or what the rationale is in the pattern of its appearances; it just shows up whenever a jump scare is needed and then disappears. The body-hopping and/or shape-shifting ability is also extremely inconsistent. Sometimes it appears as someone only in the eyes of the person with the curse, other times anyone can see it (including security cameras). Sometimes it will take the form of a person rather than possessing them; I guess it can do both, depending on what works better in a particular scene. The “cursed person will die in a week” element has no basis in the plot, unlike in The Ring. It really just seems like someone watched The Ring and thought it was a good enough idea to steal without seeing any need to give it any context in the plot. This is a lazy, lazy script that simply takes elements of superior films without any attempt at establishing its own internal logic.
As I said, I have no idea what people are seeing in this movie, but I may just be an old man yelling at kids to get off my lawn again. The kids in the theater really seemed to enjoy it, but there is little here beyond jump scares. No gore, no suspense, no interesting characters, nothing that hasn’t been done better before. I recommend just watching It Follows or The Ring instead if you haven’t seen those.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_(2022_film)#/media/File:Smile_(2022_film).jpg
