Smile (2022)
Reviewed by Osama Saffar
It's not hard to discern what kind of smile you have on someone's face, it could be friendly, a smile of admiration, a stupid smile, or even meaningless.
There are other types of smiles, some overflowing with love, some overflowing with hatred and contempt, but the most terrifying is that sarcastic smile that gloats at the same time, it is necessarily frightening and promises sure harm.
Although the smile is not the subject of the film "Smile", which is currently showing in Canada and the United States, achieving huge revenues compared to the production cost that did not exceed $ 17 million, this smile that a "human-like being" succeeded in creating in the film calls for many questions and thoughts about the smiles that we see on the faces daily, and we do not care much about interpreting what they mean.
Screenwriter and director Parker Finn presents a film belonging to what can be called self-horror, where the human soul takes out its stock of frightening, miserable and brutal memories at some point without preliminaries, assassinating its owner and sometimes extending its harm to others.
"Smile" revolves around Dr. Rose (actress Sosie Bacon) who, while working as a psychiatrist in a sanatorium, witnesses the brutal suicide of a patient, where the girl slaughters herself from ear to ear, and the doctor begins to face frightening events that she cannot explain; Dr. Rose fell into a labyrinth of a curse that she can only break free from if she faces her disturbing past.
In the pivotal scene on which the film's problem is built, the patient stands in front of the doctor to assure her that she is not crazy, that she is working on a doctoral thesis, and that what is happening to her is completely real, as she sees a being smiling at her with an evil smile, then she enters into a terror attack and collapses, and suddenly she stands standing with a completely different expression on her face, and then commits suicide in a bloody ugly scene.
There are other types of smiles, some overflowing with love, some overflowing with hatred and contempt, but the most terrifying is that sarcastic smile that gloats at the same time, it is necessarily frightening and promises sure harm.
Although the smile is not the subject of the film "Smile", which is currently showing in Canada and the United States, achieving huge revenues compared to the production cost that did not exceed $ 17 million, this smile that a "human-like being" succeeded in creating in the film calls for many questions and thoughts about the smiles that we see on the faces daily, and we do not care much about interpreting what they mean.
Screenwriter and director Parker Finn presents a film belonging to what can be called self-horror, where the human soul takes out its stock of frightening, miserable and brutal memories at some point without preliminaries, assassinating its owner and sometimes extending its harm to others.
"Smile" revolves around Dr. Rose (actress Sosie Bacon) who, while working as a psychiatrist in a sanatorium, witnesses the brutal suicide of a patient, where the girl slaughters herself from ear to ear, and the doctor begins to face frightening events that she cannot explain; Dr. Rose fell into a labyrinth of a curse that she can only break free from if she faces her disturbing past.
In the pivotal scene on which the film's problem is built, the patient stands in front of the doctor to assure her that she is not crazy, that she is working on a doctoral thesis, and that what is happening to her is completely real, as she sees a being smiling at her with an evil smile, then she enters into a terror attack and collapses, and suddenly she stands standing with a completely different expression on her face, and then commits suicide in a bloody ugly scene.
Promising Team
A third experience by the young director (Parker Finn) indicates ambition, mastery, ability to control his tools, and interest in the various elements of the film, but lacks interest in the performance of its actors and access to the depth and construction of the character.
Finn has previously made Laura Has Not Sleep (2020) and The Hidebehind (2018).
Bacon is one of the well-known actresses promising a good future, and has previously performed successful works including 13 Reasons Why (13 Reasons Why) and Mare of Eastown (2017).
Terrifying boot
The film begins with a large shot of two open eyes, which we gradually discover are the body of a woman who committed suicide, as the director used two types of technique: the first is to open the lens (zoom out) to gradually show the body that is frozen, and rotate the camera, which seemed to be lying on its right side, unlike the corpse that was lying on its left side, and with the relatively fast movement of rotation, came the circular music that was churning and frightening at the same time.
The quality of the execution of the previous scenes confirmed that we are facing a first-class horror film.
The surprise came in the work during which the director used perfect horror music, but it seemed as if he had forgotten that he was presenting a horror film, so the camera lens expanded to come most of the scenes medium or general, so the viewer's eyes do not capture those fine details of the horror in a manner befitting a horror that comes from within the human soul through a memory that wakes up from a fainting that spanned 10 years, as the mentally ill mother committed suicide while her child daughter adjoins her and does not dare to approach her.
The next terrifying melodramatic scene in the heroine's life was the suicide of her patient in front of her, which necessitated her mother's suicide in front of her in her childhood.
The film presents the details that gradually appear, and the horror she lives as a result of hallucinations, and her infection with that ghostly curse that pushes the afflicted to commit suicide or kill to get rid of it, to unfold the facts at her nephew's birthday party, and on the lips of that sister shows the story of suffering and the past that produced a psychiatrist who needs a psychiatrist.
Silly mastery
Dramas always seek to reach a state of mastery in making the plot, as it is the most important basis for the success of the dramatic work, and the plot came in an elaborate "smile" to an annoying degree, since the first scene, the director seeks the author not to waste time, effort or shots in something other than supporting their narrative, so that the work leads to one result, which is the dramatic climax, or more clearly; It really happened.
Perhaps that accuracy in the manufacture of details of human destinies within the work of art indicates great skill, but it is similar to exaggeration that loses things their meaning, and the idea of cinema loses its meaning as well, as art remains the mirror of reality, in the sense that it is not reality, but it carries its features enough to identify it, and not an automated calculation. He appears with such a neutral azimuth, which makes his rigidity and lack of emotions part of the embodiment of the role itself.
Dr. Rose begins to discover the facts related to the mysterious injury she suffered, but in parallel her human relations collapse, as her director at the sanatorium believes that she needs to rest, so he gives her leave against her will, and her friend sees that she has become almost crazy and leaves her, and her sister refuses to talk to her.
Trapped Rose finds only a former friend who works as a police officer, gathering information for her that suggests she is number 20 among those who have been cursed.
The curse that the protagonist of the movie, series or novel suffers and tries to search and reveal a way to get rid of it is a completely consuming idea, but it can be understood within the framework of the elaborate plot so that the viewer thinks that he is in front of a classic horror movie that does not seek to present the new at the level of meaning or artistic or human value, but the idea of paying attention to the horror coming from the depths of the self is quite enough to draw attention and try to clarify that monster that lies inside each of us without exception for the quieter people from Outside.
Confrontation
There are traces of body wounds left by time, and each trace tells about an accident, and as these physical effects and scars show, psychological effects remain stuck in the person, some of them remain an extinct trace of a wound healed by time or treatment, but some of them - which is the most dangerous - resemble the wound of Dr. Rose, who accompanied her feeling of guilt since her childhood, and assassinated the stories of her closeness to others, earning her superficial relationships that are not real, and lost because of her fear and bad idea of herself, real relationships, which could have represented a lifeline in her life.
At the end, the film offers a solution to that psychological disability of guilt, which is confrontation, either forgiveness from the party you feel guilty about and stop self-flagellation or revealing the truth in front of oneself by reviewing the justifications of each party, but this confrontation does not seem easy or even safe, and many may not dare to do it.
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