Smile (2022)

 Day 7 of Sobriety.

Smile is about a psychotherapist who encounters a malevolent supernatural entity in the course of her work.

I enjoyed Smile. I had reservations about it going in, because of some things I had read about it—in particular that it was rife with jump-scares, of which I am not a fan. I does have quite a few jump-scares, but I thought it was nowhere near as bad as some of the worst offenders—for example, in recent memory, The Nun (2018) and the excruciating, ear-drum-destroying “quiet—BOO! quiet—BOO!” of The Possession of Michael King (2014). Also (and this is very unusual for me), I thought that most of the jump-scares were actually skillfully done and congruent with the development of the story as a whole.

The performance of the lead actress (Sosie Bacon) playing the psychotherapist was very good. For a large part of its running time, I felt that the film played more like a psychological horror film than a supernatural one, but by the end it’s horror chops were on full display, and at one point I actually felt that it was almost straying too far into Nightmare on Elm Street territory after spending so much time developing a more subtle atmosphere.

One common criticism of the movie is that its plot treads a path that is overly familiar to many of us horror fans, with The Ring and It Follows being regularly cited as all-too-similar precursors. This may be a fair criticism, but it certainly didn’t bother me as I was watching it. I think there is sufficient originality in the film, and any horror fan would have to admit that we don’t need (or necessarily want) to reinvent the wheel in every film. Worthy of special mention, I think, is the score by Canadian musician Cristobal Tapia de Veer, which I though was excellent. It consisted largely of quite understated, but pretty left-field electronic music that contributed much to generating the overall tone of the film.

I thought the film flagged somewhat in its last 30 minutes or so, but this is a common problem with horror films as they begin to reach their conclusions. I think it is often because the sources of the horror in the films—the ghosts, the monsters, or whatever—begin as unknown mysterious threats, lurking in the shadows or half-seen from the corner of our eye. This is where their ability to inspire feelings of horror is most effective, in my opinion. By the end of the film, they are often lumbering rubber monsters or flimsy-looking CGI graphics, and the magic is gone.

The very end of the film was somewhat predictable, but at least suitably downbeat. Apparently, a sequel is in the works. It didn’t seem to be crying out for a sequel (in my opinion), but the director has said that he intends to approach it from a unpredictable angle that the audience wouldn’t anticipate, so that, at least, sounds interesting.

So ends my seventh day as the Sober Horror Fan. One week. It was with great envy that watched Dr. Cotter, the psychotherapist in Smile pour herself multiple (but very small!) glasses of chilled white wine to calm her nerves amidst the terrifying strangeness that was engulfing her. Sadly I have no such recourse, because for me, at least, the comforter is just another monster disguise!