Smile Movie Review: A Psychological Horror Starring Sosie Bacon! A Parker Finn Directorial
Stars: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner
Director: Parker Finn
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Smile Movie means smile and it seems like a very bad title for a horror film. But, as we will tell you better in our review of Smile, we must never stop at appearances. The “smile” of Parker Finn’s first work, director and screenwriter, is anything but cheerful and benevolent. The new filmmaker introduces us to his artistic vein with a psychological horror with truly disturbing and dark shades almost like Ari Aster in Hereditary. A dark and disturbing film, littered with too many jumpscares (mostly expected) that will haunt you for about two hours of footage. A decidedly excessive time. But let’s go in order.
We are dealing with a psychological horror that has its basis in that demonic paranormal that we have already known in many other films. It could be a film with a precise and delineated authorial vein, but several (nefarious) choices have made it simply yet another horror of modern times. Something commercial, fun, well-salable and above all the possible incipit of what could be yet another successful franchise (a la The Conjuring to be clear). If you want to know our opinion on Parker Finn’s film, continue reading our Smile review.
Smile Movie Review: The Plot
The story begins when the patient of a psychiatric clinic brutally commits suicide after reporting that she is tormented by frightening visions. The most chilling aspect of the story is that as she inflicts her mortal wounds, the victim has put an evil smile on her face. And that smile certainly can no longer get out of her head Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), the only direct witness of this dramatic event.
On returning home she seems to see the girl who committed suicide again in the dim light of the room, always with that evil smile on her face. But her auditory and visual hallucinations are becoming more frequent in her mind. Rose does not distinguish what is real and she is mistaken by everyone for a psychiatric patient. Investigating what is happening to her after witnessing that suicide, she realizes she has entered some sort of unstoppable deadly chain. And the scariest thing is that no one seems to understand it.
Smile Movie Review and Analysis
I wish I could write ” Parker Finn, good first”, but there are too many things that made me turn up my nose in his Smile. The film is pure horror, it mixes psychological elements (which are now very fashionable) with the paranormal and everything seems to have its structure and coherence. The atmospheres are dark, the implications of the plot to say the least disturbing as well as some of the characters. It is certainly an inhospitable world for Rose Cotter, estranged from everyone, even from her close relatives who call her a fool. But on the other hand, mental illness is something that has always characterized her family and Rose knows this all too well. All this would have been enough to scare the audience. A bit like Ari Aster had already done in his Hereditary by her, creating, thanks also to the dark tones of her photography and plot, a palpable tension at every frame without necessarily hammering the audience with annoying jump scares.
Parker Finn is not satisfied with creating only suspense and anxiety and thus the jumpscares card is played. Now, it’s okay to scare and jolt the audience in their seats, but when you push your hand a little too hard, the movie risks getting cloying. Especially if it lasts almost 120 minutes, too long for such a structured and intense horror. It would be enough now and then to give even the impression to the viewer that something could happen suddenly, without making it happen. This is suspense. Instead, making something happen whenever we expect it to happen is far too repetitive and of lesser interest.
The film becomes so much a slave to this ritual to scare the audience that it loses sight of any other “ambitions”. It sinks without further developing the plot, slowing the pace. Different in this sense are the elements that have left us perplexed. It almost seems that Parker Finn has deliberately not added other elements to leave everything in suspense, and perhaps follow up on a sequel. Or more than one. But staying on Smile you feel the lack of a real background of demonology, an excursus on why certain things happen. In short, horror is fine, but we must not just try to terrify the public, at least not to expire too much in a commercial product.
Although it is not a stellar cast, we found the interpretations of practically all the characters interesting, and fundamental to creating that dark atmosphere that the director sought. Remaining on the technical side, we can say that we have appreciated Smile very much. Parker Finn’s direction is exceptional in creating the right stage tension: in particular, the shots, especially the subjective ones, and the photography played on the absence of light in many of the key scenes of the film. The sound, on the other hand, in line with what was said before about jumpscares, is far too invasive and noisy. Suddenly shattering the eardrums is perhaps not the best way to frighten.
Ultimately, Parker Finn’s debut could be more than just yet another modern horror. We expected more authorship from a rookie director, something much closer to a Scott Derrickson (Black Phone, Sinister) or Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) film than to Annabelle so to speak. A film ruined by excessive jumpscares that make it heavy, repetitive and slave to a formula that never leads to the plot evolving as it should. There are no big twists, no interesting twists to the story or background. Everything remains vague, only hinted at, perhaps deliberately not in-depth to leave the matter to be treated also for any sequels. Also, we now know what the formula is: to have fun, to replicate. On the other hand, we always talk about the film industry.
Smile is a horror that we would like to recommend only to true lovers of the genre. There are no elements that could make it interesting to a wider audience mainly due to a rather weak script. But above all, the frequency and intensity of the jumpscares would be indigestible to those who expect to see something lighter, perhaps halfway between thriller and pure horror. Too bad, because Parker Finn could make a grand entrance with this first feature film of his. Smile is scary, disturbing, dark, malicious, one of those films full of negativity that leave you hopeless.
Smile Movie Review: The Last Words
Well then, the background, the atmospheres, the basic idea that re-proposes the theme of the curse/chain, something certainly not original but which still works very well in Smile. The excessive length, the desire to scare the viewer at any cost with strong scenes, and the desire to create sequels probably reduced Parker Finn’s work to something more commercial. Less interesting. Pity. We would have liked a “softer” formula, less pretentious on the scary side and perhaps more focused on the actual solidity of the story. Recommended only for lovers of the pure horror genre, others forget it.
