![]() ![]() So basically it was catnip for me, and I binged it all in a weekend. ![]() All of which is wrapped up in a pretty bow of “what the f*ck is going on here?!” It’s the perfect blend of mindlessly staring at pretty people, while surprisingly deep, complex social interactions and intriguing micro-political issues sneak on to the screen somehow. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.If you haven’t been watching the gloriously trashy, yet very compelling teen dystopian series The Society on Netflix, you’re missing out. One and a half stars out of four.įollow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: Ĭopyright 2022 The Associated Press. “Smile,” a Paramount Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for strong violent content and grisly images, and language. But it still makes “Smile” a cynical and shallow piece of work unlikely to put a you-know-what on too many faces. It should surprise no one that a movie marketed with creepy smiling fans at MLB games might not actually have genuine concerns about pain and healing on its mind. Bacon, daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, is impressively committed to the part, and her spiraling fear at both the malignant force haunting her and her own tenuous grip on reality is easily the best thing in “Smile.” (OK, the best thing is the terrific character Rob Morgan, but his appearance is extremely brief.) But at every turn, “Smile” detours instead to some horror cliche, eventually leading all the way to a monster in a remote cabin. There are moments here and there that suggest “Smile” might actually invest in its protagonist’s grief. “Smile” is far from the first to trade on trauma as a plot device but it may do so more than any other film I can remember. ![]() Trauma, of course, has become a favorite subject of Hollywood’s in recent years. Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Walter Thomson Previous Next This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Sosie Bacon, left, and and Kyle Gallner in a scene from "Smile." (Walter Thomson/Paramount Pictures via AP) But there’s nothing in the film’s limp cinematography or flat atmospherics that suggest anything but cheap thrills. That’s just one of many derivative elements to “Smile,” a horror movie that makes a few feeble gestures at sliding toward the so-called elevated variety of horror (like a couple upside-down shots that recall the vastly superior “Midsommar”). “Smile,” of course, isn’t the first film to think trouble can lurk behind a smile. Somewhere, you might imagine, the Joker is tapping his foot, miffed. The devilish grin is both the movie’s poster-ready image and an impossible-to-miss metaphor for putting a bright face on unexamined pain. Increasingly unhinged and paranoid, she believes she’s been cursed by an evil presence that, she comes to believe, is passed from person to person the way the unseen demon of “It Follows” was transferred through sex. Soon, Rose is seeing that creepy smile on other faces. It’s clear that, despite her profession, this has been her way of dealing with trauma since she witnessed the overdose death of her mother as a child. Rose at first brushes off the disturbing encounter. The young woman (Caitlin Stasey), beside herself with fear, suddenly flashes an ear-to-ear smile before slicing an ear-to-ear cut across her neck. Rose Cutter (Sosie Bacon), whose visit with a newly admitted patient rapidly turns gruesome. Parker Finn’s directorial debut, which opens in theaters Friday, adapts his own 11-minute short into a jump scare-rich thriller about a hospital emergency ward therapist, Dr. I have mostly frowny faces for “Smile,” a bluntly unsettling and blandly grim new horror flick that wrings as much mileage as it can out of a twisted grin. ![]()
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