Someone’s deteriorating mental state can always be a promising premise for a horror film. When you think about it, there’s almost certainly a movie you’ve seen that comes to mind, The Shining being perhaps one of the most well known examples. Smile gives the Sanity Slippage trope an extra boost by making psychotherapist Dr. Rose Cotter (played by Sosie Bacon of Mare of Easttown and Scream series) one who’s gradually becoming more like her patients at the ward, which hosts particularly alarming individuals.
The film as a project began two years ago, when apparently Paramount Pictures tapped relatively unknown filmmaker Parker Finn to create a feature adaptation based on director’s own short film Laura Hasn’t Slept, which was met with an acclaim at a number of festivals that same year. The short film deals with nightmares and psychotherapy, and, as expected, these themes had found their way into Smile. As a result, Smile is quite an oneiric movie, by which I mean that a lot of time it feels more like a bad dream than a chain of fictional real life events, however unlike dreams, it does demand from the spectator certain amount of temperance. The bleak color grading there, which is instrumental in sustaining the somber atmosphere, and the meaningful death scenes weren’t enough for me not to consider leaving the auditorium halfway through the film; the sequence of events that all create noteworthy mystery, while titillate in regards to knowing the answers about what is actually happening, seemed to be stretched out a bit too much. To the point where I was asking myself, “do I still care if this plays out as something akin to Secret Window with Depp, or if this is a case of cruel supernatural deeds and pranks in the vein of The Exorcist series?” The tropes and situations are indeed familiar to a seasoned horror fan, and one of the features that saves Smile from being another bore that ruminates the tropes are the visual details of the more disturbing scenes in it. For instance, there is a scene with Rose in her car, as people say, “losing it” after witnessing another traumatic event which involves her sister – this is skilfully captured using the so called very long shot, and along with the sound creates the effect of seeing something unexpected and worrisome.
Smile film still with Sosie Bacon and Gillian Zinser. Source
Smile’s sound design is another feature that feels refreshing. Last time sound effects and its design in a movie left a lasting impression on me was a couple of years ago in Cineworld while I was watching Saint Maud; another film sporting both, female protagonist and disintegrating sanity. Saint Maud was an experience which didn’t leave impression of concerning itself a lot with trends and successful tropes – something I’m not that certain of in case of Smile. There is a persistent The Ring and Feardotcom vibe throughout the film, which, taken together with the titles and their themes mentioned earlier, hints at the possibility of some considerations concerning profit making. While the story’s integrity in Smile is fabulously strong throughout (which is impressive taken into account the theme of Sanity Slippage) with a notable background of psychology, the sound design as well as visual approach at certain points in the film imply that the director’s style and creative expression could have altogether brought to the screen something different if it all was an independent effort with the same budget. I would like to think that Smile is the case of Paramount honing a new talent, and Parker Finn’s creative efforts would get more authentic in the future with no less surprises than what they are in this film. The skill of playing with finer shades of dark both, literally and metaphorically, is obvious, and hopefully next time the ever so important thing – the shape of antagonist in the finale, won’t remind me so much of a blockbuster of the last decade.
Peer Ynt
Read my review of 2021 movie Demonic, featuring themes of possession and mental health disorders here.
Read my review of 2018 tv series Deadwax that deals with sound and its design here.
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