After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain. Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.
- Released:
- Runtime: 115 minutes
- Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thrillers
- Stars: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner
- Director: Parker Finn
Comments
- marquesbolouri - 18 June 2024
Empty horror
The only thing this film has going for it is a few jump scares (which is the cheapest form of horror). More than half way through the movie and I felt like there was nothing to keep me invested in the film. The characters were somewhat decent with ok performances but they didn't develop any lore or background for this so called entity that was responsible for the horror. There was no understanding of the motivations it had or any idea as to why it was even there or doing what it was doing. The end offered very little to redeem this and so overall, another promising premise for a film that failed in execution and planning. - Brit-32853 - 19 May 2024
Most Reviewers Have Got the Ending wrong! SPOILERS
Most reviewers say they are disappointed by the ending because they perceive the ending as a mainstream horror ending where the 'evil spirit' gets passed on to the next victim. You've got this wrong!
Here's the real reason why the ending is clever and aligned with the rest of the theme of the movie.
The very first scene shows the dead mother. This is where the mental and emotional trauma began in Rose.
Like most psychologists, Rose entered this professional because of her own unresolved trauma.
In the hospital, the young girl who also experienced trauma from seeing someone suicide was having paranoid delusions and her suicide triggered Rose's own trauma.
All victims were in fact not cursed by an evil spirit, but when triggered, were reliving their own trauma that was still living inside them.
Rose realises she needs to confront the trauma of her mother's suicide and letting her die by going back to her childhood home. In one of the final scenes we witness the giant gruesome mother tilting Rose's head back and looks like it's trying to enter her body. When Joel enters we see Rose in a similar position with her head tilted back pouring the can of gasoline over herself. These two scenes mirror each other, intentionally showing the viewer that there is no evil spirit that gets passed on from person to person, but instead affirms the fundamental theme of the movie - unresolved trauma lies dormant in the body until it's triggered - and in fact Rose and all the other victims were experiencing paranoid delusions from witnessing a person suiciding in front of them.
All the 'evil spirits' are a metaphor for the trauma living in the human body and how it manifests in the forms of mental delusions.
I urge viewers to re-watch the ending. - shvamal - 26 April 2024
strong idea weak characters
Decided to revisit this after seeing clips online. Originally saw it in the theatre, and it revolves around a troubled psychiatrist with severe childhood trauma treating a patient that kills herself in front of her, after which the psychiatrist starts seeing the suicide patient among her own trauma.... for me, the movie start to fail at around second act and the weakest link here are the somewhat important characters of the sister & boyfriend. They haven't been properly developed and also the dialogue between the protagonist & these characters is very weak. Overall it was promising and has good suspense & scares also the monster reveal is psychotic in a good way but this horror meat part is placed on a very weak skeleton (script & undeveloped side characters) so the whole things leaves an unfulfilled impression like something is missing, as audience you don't get the satisfaction or resolution. - FKDZ - 10 January 2023
Smile
Smile is a well done, entertaining but typical horror. It excels at jump scares, of which there are many, some executed skillfully and others very predictable. This made for an overal good viewing, with decent tension, alright horror and decent acting.
For pretty much a directorial debut for Finn this is a strong movie to start with. Horror is one of the easiest genre's and it doesn't innovate much, but it does work as a solid little horror movie. With well build tension. Some really good jump scares, the most notable one being the one where she just left her sister (trying to be vague here). That was the one that really got me, and was a bit silly too, but still scary. There are some dull scenes from a directing standpoint. The drone shots are nice but also don't do or say much.
Acting was alright, I think the main actress is fantastic, no doubt. But the rest of the cast is kind of meh. This is also due to some of the dialog. I think her fiancé was written well for the most part until it became a little too snobby towards the end. Her sister and friend are not great and the lines even worse. The therapist is good. And the girl at the start is good. Overall decent.
Characters and story, if you've seen It Follows you've seen this movie too, so it's not very original, especially towards the finale which seems to mimic a scene from that movie almost directly, without the effect. But characters are kind of left behind, the fiancé, the therapist, her sister. For a horror movie you'd expect more to actually happen. Daydreaming doesn't count. This did lower the stakes and tension a bit over time.
Pacing, starts of strong, first 30 minutes are good, then it slouches a bit and for me it never really picked up fully again, it really slows down it's pace. This shouldn't have been a 2 hour movie.
Gore and scares. Gore is pretty good, not excessive and not crazy real either (the cat was a bit off). Some of the CGI was iffy. But there's not that much gore anyways. Scares, the finale scare was a kind of funny looking one, not scary in the slightest, looked a bit cheap. The CGI scenes then were okay. The smile concept works for most actors, but not all. The final girl I think wasn't able to pull it off with her face. Whilst others were able to have that more disturbed look. That said as a concept I thought it worked, of course a bit silly, but also disturbing, which worked out.
Score, sound design was great, really well done. Loved the subtlety's and interesting sound que's and instruments used to note certain moments. Made the movie feel more unique as a whole.
Just a fun, jump scare filled time that should've been a bit shorter. - apryla-58795 - 8 January 2023
The sister is the real problem here
I like the concept here but...let's start from the beginning...why was there a ceramic vase in the room where they were seeing unstable patients? That girl would've never died had that not been in there. Those kinds of things are not in rooms like that. The hospital knows all the precautions to take in those instances so that was a glaring thing obvious just for the sake of the movie to move it along.
The main character and her fiancée have no chemistry. That was clearly another obvious thing they did for today's society. It's not believable so it falls flat. He was so boring and added nothing to the film but they were able to check a box off. That's why films are so bad anymore. They aren't doing things that flow or are natural to the story so it takes away from the film. They are more worried about representation and inclusion but it's not from a genuine place so it's glaringly obvious and films are worse off for it. How come the psychiatrist couldn't be a POC? How come they quickly got the fiancée out of the way so the white detective could take center stage. Why couldn't the detective be a POC? By all means any film being made today should be inclusive and representative but they should be putting some effort into them so they don't look formulaic. We don't know how Rose and Trevor met or why they are together. He abandons her the minute she starts acting strangely. We aren't invested in them because the director didn't bother to show us why we should care.
Moving on...the sister was such a bad actress that she couldn't even muster up real tears in the one confrontational scene between her and Rose discussing their mother. Also why are films trying to normalize being abusive to the male partners/spouses? The sister was a waste of space and she was so rude and dismissive to her husband. If that had been portrayed the other way around people would've boycotted the film. Why is this acceptable? For some reason now every film has to show the females not only in power but being unbelievably dismissive and hostile towards their partners/spouses or infantilizing them. That's not healthy and it shouldn't be normalized. That was not necessary to the film and really angered me and it should anger everyone else as well. That is not ok.
Lastly Sosie Bacon is a good actress and somewhat cute but she has an extremely large unfortunate mole right in the middle of her cheek that 1,000% distracts from her acting. It's all I can see when she's on screen. No doubt she would've had that removed by now if removing those things weren't tricky. It might seem like an easy thing but when they are that large you can't cosmetically remove them without causing significant scarring. Usually the scarring is worse than the mole. You can't tell me the director wasn't aware of that either because most of the shots are from her other side or they show it in shadows. She also turns her face away a lot or puts her hair over it. It's obviously an issue. Things like that shouldn't distract from someone's acting but unfortunately they do.
I thought overall this was ok. I was hoping it was gonna be terrifying but it was just mostly jump scares and foreboding without any real scary scenes.
Finally stop with the killing of animals. We own several cats and it's very upsetting when I see movies that kill animals for no good reason. Oh and also the constant usage of people's nails getting ripped or cut or torn are highly disturbing. Why they gotta show that other than to get cheap thrills or scenes? Not necessary. - alexandraahlen - 6 January 2023
As someone with high standards, I give it a 3/10
First, I only give reviews when it's really damn good or really damn bad.
Second, this is more of a psychological thriller.
And no over to the overall experience: This is the kind of movie a person with quite low standards for what's actually good psychological horror. It starts out good, but it goes downhill from after the first fifteen minutes.
If you, like me, have high standards and doesn't think that paranormal things and monsters is actually psychological horror, then you won't like this movie. Not great acting either.
I feel like if they had gone with the psychological aspect of mental health and made something freaky, it could've been something better. But it actually in the end has more to do with like curses and paranormal entities and ends with a not-at-all-logic monster which resembles a female slenderman almost.
I don't understand how it got such good rating, at all.
If you really want to see it, wait until you can stream it for free because what makes me the most disappointed is that I actually paid for this massive waste of time. - januzi_hates_paid_reviews - 3 January 2023
A mix of other movies
This movie is pretty good ... at copying the other movies. We have "Fallen" mixed with the "Truth or Dare", "Gothika", "The Babadook", and so on. Mostly the two first I've mentioned at first. The only good thing is the camera work, which is pretty impressive. I'm still trying to figure out how did they make the camera go through the glass. Other than that ... it is just ... generic horror movie, that has got no personality.
The worst part of this movie was the ending. It didn't feel right, and I'm pretty sure that it was forced. Almost like it was created the way so it would be easier to make a sequel, I guess?
Have fun watching this movie, maybe.
My review contains spoilers, because I've mentioned the movie "Fallen", which is basically the same, except it is far much better. Go and watch it, thank me later. - frank-71651 - 1 January 2023
It is happening again
Smile is this year's It Follows, a sleeper hit among younger audiences who mistake rote horror cliches for suspense and depth. Its twists can be seen from a mile away and the jump scares are as predictable and ineffective as they come. Like the aforementioned movie, Smile revolves around an entity that, following a cathartic event in the opening scene, starts to pursuit the main character who is dealing with issues all their own. It's a slow burn that frequently lulls the viewer into apathy, and the often uninspired direction doesn't help things either. As the movie drags towards the end with a surprisingly resonant and graphic resolution, its heavy handed handling of themes such as trauma and grief becomes all the more obvious. By the end of 2023, this movie will no doubt have been replaced by the next "big thing" - and hopefully more memorable than this one. - fiend-93825 - 30 December 2022
Not that bad at all
One of very few horror movies that managed to surprise me this year. When the trailer came out, I thought it was gonna be another dumb, incompetent mess.
I was proved wrong.
From the very start, everything from the directing, performances to the cinematography and sound design were absolute stunning. How a low budget managed this feat was beyond me but the film was simply mesmerizing to look at.
The horror was quite effective with jumpscares and dreadful moments, albeit some cheap ones but not that distracting. They were able to build up the tension so well and never intended to tone it down right till the very end. The plot was simple enough to interlink all relevant characters to make me care about them, although some could complain 90% of the characters were just filler and I might agree with that. However, the protagonist was good enough to carry the whole show.
One thing that may not sit well with a lot of audience was the use of mental illness. Smile handled it decently but don't expect Oscar worthy exposition. And no, it wasn't exactly the main theme so try not to quit halfway through because there would be surprises by the last act of the film.
Give it a go. I'd say it was well worth the time for horror fans like myself. This was not just some Annabelle or Insidious sequels but something more. - jbacon-582-109720 - 29 December 2022
Best Horror Movie in Years
So disappointed.. that I didn't see it in theaters! I chose to see Barbarian instead, which was an actual disappointment.
Through and through, this is one of the most solid horror movies I've seen in years. Pacing is excellent and suspense was solid throughout; it had me on edge. Excellent original plot and thought provoking ideas. The movie is about trauma and it is dark. Some of the twists I did not see coming and were setup fantastically, which really nailed home how good this movie was. Jump scares were very good because they were both shocking and visually impressive. Cinematography and set design were excellent, and not overly stylish. I give the acting a 7/10. But the big thing holding this movie back, from a 9 or even 10, was the script. The script was very average compared to the rest of the movie: 6/10.
Overall I really enjoyed this movie, and recommend it to all fans of horror genre! 8/10.
