Smile

Starring: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Robin Weigert, Caitlin Stasey, Kal Penn, Rob Morgan, Gillian Zinser, Judy Reyes, Perry Strong
Directed by: Parker Finn
Rating: R
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
2022

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A psychiatrist (Sosie Bacon) witnesses a brutal suicide by a patient with a grin on their face as they kill themselves. She begins seeing an entity and investigates a chain of suicides that seem to pass from witness to witness.

Review:

Tim: Smile is an interesting horror film from writer/director Parker Finn, making his feature film directorial debut. The film has many worthwhile moments, a few frustrating ones, but generally works more often than not. I believe this is a good movie and shows that Finn has real promise. Many of the film's worst aspects likely come from his relative lack of experience (two short films didn't fully prepare him for this). That all being said, there's no way to look at this as anything other than a win. There's been far, far worse debuts out there.

The big visual differentiator of this film is the creepy occurrence of those committing suicide or threatening others having a big, huge smile on their face. It's a small thing, but it delivers appropriately unsettling results. I wouldn't call it brilliant, but it's obviously this film's big gimmick. Outside of that, the film progresses more or less along the lines you would expect. The idea of this evil entity creating a chain of deaths is far from new, but it's leveraged well in this case. Finn's film does very little new, but he executes it well. I mostly became invested in the characters and story and I enjoyed the experiencing watching the movie.

Sosie Bacon gives a good performance in the lead role, but I have to admit I never loved her work. It was always effective, but her performance felt unnecessarily standoffish. I don't think she quite connected emotionally with the audience. I cared about her plight just because she was innocent- her character's background was only mildly interesting. I do appreciate Finn spending adequate time on character development- it absolutely helps the movie. And, like I said, I have minor complaints about Bacon. For the most part, she sells her performance and I believed her character's various emotions. I liked Kyle Gallner's performance. He emerged as one of the stronger aspects of the film- it felt like he grounded his performance well. Jessie T. Usher added very little to the film- he didn't seem much invested in his performance. I loved seeing Kal Penn in his supporting role. I was glad he actually got a few things to do throughout the film. It's a bit of a thankless role, but he plays it well. I always love seeing Rob Morgan and his one scene here was great. It also felt like a massive treat getting to see Judy Reyes in a small supporting role here, too. Reyes likewise gets only one scene, but she plays it well. I've missed her since her Scrubs days and it was wonderful seeing her in something quite different from that series. The rest of the cast is fine. It's interesting, the supporting players here are by far the better known. The cast as a whole isn't quite as effective as they need to be. As a whole, I'd call the cast just slightly above average.

As I said, the story is fairly predictable. It's intriguing enough that the journey never feels redundant or bland. I was interested to see where the story would go. The film does have some creepy visuals and moments throughout, although it gets the majority of its scares through cheap jump scares. There was one that did make me exclaim out loud, but it felt cheap. I gasped and then felt angry at the movie. Outside of those basic jump scares, the movie mostly relies on the creepiness of people committing violent acts with a bizarre smile on their face. Not high cinema, but decently effective.

I mostly enjoyed Smile. Sure, it has its flaws and Finn allows his film to follow the expected path. None of it is brilliant, but it tells a nice horror film with some strong mystery elements. The characters are solid and developed enough that you can mostly forgive their dumb decisions. The movie does rely a bit too much on the "is this real or in their head"? trope- it got annoying a few times. It did create a few surprises along the way, too. It feels like a while since we had a great horror movie and while Smile isn't that, it's at least a solid effort.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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