‘Smile’ is Worth Your While

Rose (Sosie Bacon) is a therapist at an emergency psychiatric unit. Her tightly ordered world is upended when she meets a patient named Laura (Caitlin Stasey), who has visions of unholy apparitions smiling at her. Shortly after, she cuts her own throat. When Rose starts seeing the grinning specters herself (the curse is passed to someone who witnessed the afflicted person’s inevitable suicide), she realizes that Laura was not delusional.

The film is surprisingly sympathetic in its depiction of people with mental conditions. Rose, who’s facing serious trauma due to the death of her mother at a young age, is counterpointed by insensitive louts like her brother-in-law and Detective Buckley (Perry Strong), who concludes that Laura was a “head case” and “She sounds fucking crazy to me.” You could interpret the film as an allegory for mood disorders; the symptoms of being stalked by the demon sound similar to those of anxiety and depression. As Laura states, “Whenever I see it, I just get this god-awful feeling like something really terrible is going to happen.” She says, “It tells me things.” Speaking from experience, depression and anxiety can sound an awful lot like an external voice saying awful things.

The damage caused by repressing internal angst is a theme throughout the movie. Rose’s sister Holly (Gillian Zinser) has seemingly moved past the horrors of their childhood unscathed and is introduced to us by blabbing about her first-world problems like having to get up at 6 AM to take her son to school and not having time for Pilates, but later she seems a bit brittle and able to snap easily. Rose meanwhile when faced with adversity ironically resorts to giving a big fake smile and asserting that she’s fine. When asked about her visions, she calmly describes them as “corporeal and unsettling.” She also tends to drink a lot of wine. Her relationship with her fiancé Trevor (Jesse T. Usher) is pretty dysfunctional. They don’t seem to spend a lot of time together or even have much chemistry. Every time Rose raises her voice or gets upset in front of him, she immediately stops herself and frantically apologizes. Eventually she blows up at him for wanting her to be perfect.

The film builds up tension expertly. The camera techniques are divine. There are lovely sideways rolling shots, upside down establishment shots, Dutch angles, and in one impressive scene, an upside down Dutch angle. The score is lightly used but eerie. I read that people complained about the jump scares, but they’re not overused, and when they do occur, they’re genuinely startling. When Rose sees an apparition of her mother (Kevin Keppy) (who will now forever be known to me as Giant Underwear Mom thanks to fellow reviewer The Devil’s DVD Bin), it’s gratifyingly creepy.

My gripes are few. The widow of the dead professor who infected Laura (Judy Reyes) is uncomfortably close to the ubiquitous horror movie cliché of the superstitious Latina character who explains what’s going on; she clunkily provides exposition about the curse: “He saw that awful woman kill herself.” It drags a bit in the middle and feels longer than it needs to be. But in the end it won me over. Check it out if you’re in the mood for something somber but entertaining and occasionally scary.

PS, if you’re looking for a hilariously bonkers take on the film, check out Film Miasma’s review.