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Smile is a 2022 American psychological horror film written and directed by Parker Finn (in his feature directorial debut), based on his 2020 short film Laura Hasn't Slept. The film stars Sosie Bacon as a therapist who, after witnessing the bizarre suicide of a patient, goes through increasingly disturbing and daunting experiences, leading her to believe what she is experiencing is supernatural. Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Caitlin Stasey, Kal Penn, and Rob Morgan also star in the film.

Smile
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Parker Finn
Written by	Parker Finn
Based on	Laura Hasn't Slept by Parker Finn
Produced by	Marty Bowen Wyck Godfrey Isaac Klausner Robert Salerno
Starring	Sosie Bacon Jessie T. Usher Kyle Gallner Caitlin Stasey Kal Penn Rob Morgan
Cinematography	Charlie Sarroff
Edited by	Elliot Greenberg
Music by	Cristobal Tapia de Veer
Production companies	Paramount Players Temple Hill Entertainment
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release dates	September 22, 2022 (2022-09-22) (Fantastic Fest) September 30, 2022 (2022-09-30) (United States)
Running time	115 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$17 million[2]
Box office	$53.9 million[1][3]

A feature adaptation of Finn's short was announced in June 2020, and the cast was added in October 2021. Filming began that month, taking place in New Jersey. Originally set for a streaming release through Paramount+, the studio opted to release the film theatrically after strong positive test screenings. Smile had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2022, and was released in the United States on September 30, 2022, by Paramount Pictures.

The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, who praised the jumpscares, production values, and Bacon's performance, though some noted the similarities to other horror media, such as It Follows and The Ring.

Plot

At a psychiatric ward, psychiatrist Dr. Rose Cotter meets recently admitted patient Laura Weaver, a PhD student who witnessed her professor die by suicide. She claims to be the only one to see an entity that pretends to be other people smiling at her. Laura has a panic attack and convulses. As Rose calls for help, Laura smiles at her before cutting her own throat with a shard from a broken vase.

Following the suicide, Rose witnesses a vulnerable patient named Carl smiling at her and shouting that she is going to die. When she orders for Carl to be restrained, Rose suddenly sees that Carl had been asleep the whole time. Concerned for Rose's mental well-being, her supervisor Dr. Morgan Desai gives her a week-long break. The supernatural occurrences continue, harming Rose's relationships with her fiancé Trevor and her sister Holly. Rose has had a strained relationship with Holly, ever since the death of their abusive mother, who overdosed and whose body was discovered by a young Rose. At her nephew's birthday party, Rose's gift is somehow replaced by her dead cat, which had disappeared the night before. Rose encounters an attendant smiling at her, convincing her she is now cursed.

Discovering that Laura's professor was smiling at her during his death, Rose pays a visit to his widow Victoria, who claims that her husband started acting differently after witnessing a woman die by suicide. Rose visits her ex, Joel, a police detective who had responded to Laura's death. The two go through police records; in multiple cases, someone suffers supernatural hauntings before killing themselves while smiling before passing the hauntings on to a witness, causing a chain reaction. Joel discovers that none of the cursed victims last longer than a week except Robert Talley, who is in prison for killing a stranger. Rose and Joel visit Talley under the pretense that a patient of Rose's has been cursed. Talley explains that the only way to break the chain is to kill someone else, in front of a witness that the curse will transfer to.

The demon later assumes the form of Rose's therapist, Dr. Madeline Northcott, and attacks Rose during a therapy session, telling her that it is "almost time." Later on, Rose has a vision of murdering Carl at the hospital in front of Desai, who rips the skin off his face. After spotting a knife inside an erratic Rose's car, Desai calls the police on her. Rose drives to her remote, abandoned former family home as Joel tries to track her down. Planning to deprive the demon of witnesses, Rose holes up in the house where she finds the demon taking the form of her dead mother. It is revealed that Rose had actually found her mother shortly before she overdosed and fearfully ignored her mother begging for help. Rose confronts the demon, who morphs into a tall, deformed version of Rose's mother. She sets the demon on fire with a lantern, seemingly killing it and ending the curse. Rose drives to Joel's apartment and is comforted by him until she realizes the demon is taking his form. As she flees, Rose discovers that she is still at the old house just as the real Joel arrives — everything that happened from the moment she entered the house was a hallucination.

Panicking, Rose goes back into the house, locking the door behind her. The demon overpowers Rose and rips off its face, revealing its true form to her — a skinless entity with a long grin, containing a sort of Russian nesting doll of grins — before crawling into her mouth, possessing her. Joel enters the house and discovers Rose smiling and pouring gasoline over herself. Joel watches helplessly as a smiling Rose burns herself alive, passing the curse on to him.

Cast

Production

In June 2020, Parker Finn was tapped by Paramount Pictures to write and direct a feature adaptation of his own short film Laura Hasn't Slept, which saw a young woman seeking the help of her therapist desperate to rid herself of a recurring nightmare. Earlier in March that year, the short film won the Special Jury Recognition Prize for SXSW's Midnight Short category.[4] In September 2021, the film was announced under the title Something's Wrong with Rose with Sosie Bacon cast as the titular character. Paramount Players and Temple Hill Entertainment had boarded the film to co-produce.[5] The following month, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Rob Morgan, Kal Penn, Judy Reyes, Gillian Zinser and Caitlin Stasey joined the cast.[6]

Principal photography began on October 11, 2021,[7] in New Jersey, including in the city of Hoboken,[8] and finished on November 24, 2021.[9]

Editing and post-production started on December 3, 2021,[10] and lasted through the end of May 2022,[11] visual effects was done by the-Artery and was supervised by Yuval levy and Vico Sharabani, when the film was simply retitled Smile.[12] By the end of the month, Cristobal Tapia de Veer was attached to compose the film.[13]^{[better source needed]} For practical effects, Finn recruited Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. of Amalgamated Dynamics, who he described as a major influence in wanting to be a horror filmmaker for their work in films such as Aliens.[14]

Marketing

Promotional materials that were released included an eight-second teaser on May 26, a 40-second teaser trailer shown at screenings of Top Gun: Maverick and Crimes of the Future in early June 2022,[12] and a two-minute trailer and poster on June 22. Brad Miska of Bloody Disgusting described the footage as "pretty generic", but said it stood out due to its similarities to Ringu and The Ring.[15] Shania Russell at /Film compared the film to The Ring, It Follows and Truth or Dare and wrote, "It's all very familiar and probably not too hard to imagine how the movie will progress, but the scares will make or break the experience, and based on the trailer, Smile is more than promising."[16]

During several Major League Baseball games the weekend before the film's release, an apparent viral marketing stunt occurred, as the studio or marketing firm purchased seats behind home plate, with actors smiling maniacally into the camera for the pitcher-batter shot for extended periods of time. Some of the actors wore shirts with the name and logo of the film on the front.[17][18]

A tie-up with the Craiyon text-to-image generator involved AI generation of images of nightmarish smiles.[19][20]

Release

Smile had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2022,[21] followed by screenings at Beyond Fest on September 27.[22] It was released in the United States on September 30, 2022, by Paramount Pictures.[23] Paramount Pictures President and CEO Brian Robbins said that Smile was originally slated for a streaming-only release on Paramount+, but the studio eventually decided to release the film theatrically because of strong results from test screenings.[24]

Reception

Box office

As of October 7, 2022^[update], Smile has grossed $37.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $15.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $53.9 million.[1][3]

In the United States and Canada, Smile was released alongside Bros, and was projected to gross $16–20 million from 3,645 theaters in its opening weekend.[2] The film made $8.2 million on its first day, including $2 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $22.6 million, topping the box office and slightly overperforming its projections, while being the biggest debut of September 2022.[25][26]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 155 reviews, and an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Deeply creepy visuals and a standout Sosie Bacon further elevate Smile's unsettling exploration of trauma, adding up to the rare feature that satisfyingly expands on a short."[27] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[28] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave the film a 69% overall positive score, with 53% saying they would definitely recommend it.[25]

Marisa Mirabal of IndieWire gave the film a grade of B−, noting its plot's similarities to films such as It Follows, The Ring, Oculus and Final Destination. She wrote: "Smile navigates unhealed trauma through a supernatural lens and mischievous juxtaposition, despite feeling like a shadow of other stories", and added that it "delivers a captivating and claustrophobic mental hellscape that will cause one to both grimace and grin."[29] Tasha Robinson of Polygon wrote: "Smile is often a gimmicky, even corny horror movie, packed with so many jump-scares that the sheer pile-on borders on laughable... But no matter how excessively the legitimate scares pile up, they're startling and convincing. The editing and music are impressively tuned for maximum impact whenever the slow-burning tension resolves with an abrupt, ugly surprise. All of which makes Smile an efficient ride, if an unusually unrelenting one."[30]

Katie Rife of RogerEbert.com gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars, writing: "In padding out the concept from an 11-minute short into a nearly two-hour movie, Smile leans too heavily not only on formulaic mystery plotting, but also on horror themes and imagery lifted from popular hits like The Ring and It Follows."[31] Kevin Maher of The Times wrote: "There are some nice jump scares and Bacon is charismatic but it's achingly derivative and dull", and gave the film 2 out of 5 stars.[32]

References

External links

• Official website
• Smile at IMDb
• Smile at Rotten Tomatoes

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