Smile
"Smile" sports fake outs and jump scares out the ying-yang.
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“Smile” (available in theaters beginning Friday, Sept. 30) is to suicide what “It Follows” was to sex. Throw in elements of “Final Destination” and “The Ring” for good measure and you’re in for one potent punch of a pumpkin season picture.
Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) is a psychiatrist talking to upset graduate student Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey) after she witnessed her professor Gabriel Munoz (an uncredited Felix Melendez Jr.) bludgeon himself to death. Weaver complains of hallucinations and an otherworldly presence prior to creepily smiling and killing herself in front of Rose.
Concerned for Rose’s well-being, her supervisor Dr. Morgan Desai (Kal Penn) encourages her to take some time away. Also worried for Rose’s welfare are her fiancé Trevor (Jessie T. Usher) and her policeman ex-boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner), who coincidentally enough was assigned to investigate Weaver’s death.
As Rose also begins having hallucinations, she starts ostracizing herself from Trevor, her sister Holly (Gillian Zinser) and her brother-in-law Greg (Nick Arapoglou). Concerned with her mental stability, Rose reaches out to her former psychiatrist Dr. Madeline Northcutt (Robin Weigert, best known as Calamity Jane on “Deadwood”) for prescriptive assistance. Rose and Joel team to investigate the circumstances surrounding her current predicament leading them to interview the imprisoned and similarly cursed Robert Talley (aces character actor Rob Morgan).
For a movie of its ilk, “Smile” is very well-acted. Bacon looks uncannily like her father (Kevin) and sounds a helluva lot like her mother (Kyra Sedgwick). I don’t think I’d seen her elsewhere before, but was impressed by her ability to express fear and mental anguish. Gallner, a fixture of teen horror flicks from the aughts and early 2010s such as “Jennifer’s Body,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (2010) and “Red State,” seems to have dropped his voice an octave and comes across much more maturely here. He makes for an appealing and likable leading man. Having actors the caliber of Weigert and Morgan on hand if for only one scene (as is the case with Morgan) also elevates the proceedings considerably.
“Smile” is the feature debut of writer/director Parker Finn, who extrapolates upon his short “Laura Hasn’t Slept” here. This is one hell of an introduction for the burgeoning genre filmmaker. It’s creepy, scary and surprisingly very darkly funny. There are fake outs and jump scares out the ying-yang, which are goosed out via the artistry of cinematographer Charlie Sarroff (“Relic”) and editor Elliot Greenberg (“Crawl”). I must also give props to Tom Woodruff Jr. and all the artisans at Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. for their gnarly special effects makeups designs.
I could see “Smile” upsetting mental health advocates and sufferers alike (and somewhat justifiably so) as it conjures up scares via depictions of suicide, but I found it to be a fun and effective horror flick. It leaves itself wide open for a sequel, for which I’m more than game.