Smile

 

One of the better Japanese type of horror movies made recently, that happens to be an American movie. A film that combines the psychological and the supernatural so you never truly know what is happening. While there are some jump scares in this, they are done in a smart way. The movie does end up repeating itself a lot though. What I like is the supernatural force in this movie never gets much of an explanation. That makes sure the audience can suspend disbelief. Certain scenes you may say that was all happening in the character's head and others you may be saying that was a supernatural force causing what happened. I enjoy any movie that makes you unsure of the line between real and surreal. This movie has real substance and is about how trauma is inescapable. No matter what you do you can't get rid of it. 

The film starts out with psychiatrist, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) seeing a patient at a psychiatric ward. Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey), the patient in question is a PhD student whose professor committed suicide in front of her. Laura claims to be the only one who can see an entity that smiles at her. Laura starts convulsing. Rose calls for help and Laura suddenly stands up and smiles at her and cuts her own throat. 

This scene really sets the tone for the film. The Wide establishing shots of them at first that suddenly get closer and more intimate as the scene goes on. The blaring music that gives way to silence and then only music after Laura kills herself. There is an element of suspense that builds with the music but then the lack of music gives more reverence and makes the scene with her smiling more scary. 

After the suicide Rose sees another vulnerable patient named Carl who keeps telling her she is going to die. Carl suddenly gets aggressive and after calling for restraints the scene changes to Carl sleeping. This is something that will happen throughout the film is that scenes will play out but the more malevolent parts will appear to be either in Rose's head or not really happening. 

The supernatural episodes keep occurring messing up Rose's relationships with her fiancee Trevor (Jessie T. Usher), her sister Holly (Gillian Zinser), and her nephew. With no one to turn to she eventually turns to her ex-boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner) for help. Joel is a cop who finds a string of suicides within one week of people witnessing a another person committing suicide. One man who committed murder, Robert Talley (Rob Morgan) broke the string and is the only survivor. Rose and Joel go to visit him.

Spoiler Section

There are some memorable jump scares and images in this movie. That first one in Rose's apartment where she sees Laura's silhouette in the dark and then a scare happens away from that that forces her to drop her glass is great. The misdirection is there. Most of the alternate reality setups where Rose thinks she is seeing something but then it turns out to be something else are really good. The one with the therapist where she thinks she is with her therapist and then her therapist calls her is well done. The biggest problem is that the movie starts to function on these scenes alone. The scene where she goes into the clinic and kills Carl was good but I thought it was almost too long to turn into a dream sequence. I guess you can call those parts dream sequences or hallucinations. They basically function the same way. Smiles themselves are an interesting way of driving or identifying the horror of this movie. Smiles can look weirder and creepier the longer someone does it. That does lead to one of my favorite images from the film which is the bloody smile going through the morgue sheet covering of someone's dead body. The scene at the end where Rose goes to her childhood home to confront her mother was great. While the mother is mostly CGI the darkness and the sound still go the point across and I really felt I was watching a giant guilt representation of Rose's mother. The darkness where you are seeing the same amount as Rose makes that ending impactful. 

This whole movie is about how trauma is inescapable. It also does an interesting bait and switch where the psychiatrist becomes the crazy one. She becomes the one who loses everyone around her and that is when someone finds out who is really there for them. Everyone including her husband finds her crazy and unbelievable while Joel sticks with her. No matter what we do trauma is on our mind. We can cope with it but we can't erase it. I like that is movie makes how you respond to it a conflict. At a certain point in the movie Rose has to decide if killing someone is better than living with the possibility of suicide. So it almost forces someone to make a selfish decision. Though once they know that this curse could be broken almost any action could be selfish. That is one issue I had with this movie. Rose at the end of the movie drives to a secluded area to confront her trauma and thinks she has defeated it by burning the house. Joel shows up there and it turns out to be yet another dream sequence. The issue here is that Rose could have killed herself before Joel showed up? Is she making a selfish choice or is the movie trying to say that trauma cannot be killed? It passes on because everyone has it. I will give the supernatural force in this some props for making sure Rose knew she was giving the curse to Joel, the only person who was there for her in the end. 

While this movie did many things I liked I wasn't really thinking about the issues while I was watching it, I do think this works best in the theater. The atmosphere of this in the theater makes it better. I just think the reliance on jump scares, fake outs, more specifically long-drawn out fake outs, makes the movie feel a little to cute by the end. Even the style is played out a bit where the upside down camera angles feel like a prestige movie rather than something necessary to the film. Still though the investigation element, the fact that by the end you really don't know much about the entity, and the themes and conflicts are interesting enough for me to enjoy this one. I like seeing Rob Morgan in anytthing. Sosie Bacon is an actor I've liked and seeing her in a starring vehicle was cool. 

Rating: 8/10