Parker Finn’s “Smile”

Smile (2022)

Okay pulp horror fable that never reaches the heights of the films from which it borrows being let down by a series of baffling and unconvincing characters

Playing like a nineties Japanese curse horror for good and bad, it’s let down by some of the worst character work I’ve seen in a while. There’s an air of bad M. Night Shyamalen here as ideas outpace considerations around the people who feel like mere objects in service of a plot with potential despite lacking originality. This character work continually threw me out of the flow of the film as the contrived reactions and inexplicable decisions give off a potent air of artifice. Taking elements from The Ring, It Follows and The Babadook, it invites comparison for which it isn’t able to match.

Despite all this, the music is excellent and contributes greatly to the suspense and lead Sosie Bacon does well with what she’s given, but beyond that there’s a thorough lack of originality. For example, the cinematograhy is quite good but if I see another upside down drone shot outside a pastiche it will be too soon. The film also creates a few jump scares based entirely on a sudden cut or crash of music. Amid a film with plenty of jump scares, these felt cheap and unnecessary.

Being a horror, it did a good job in building suspense but all of that was for nought when the lousy dialogue and character writing constantly reminds us that we’re watching actors stuck on the puppet strings of a writer thinking only of the concept. Average.