Smile (2022), directed by Parker Finn and distributed by Paramount Pictures, is a film that focuses on the life of a doctor, Rose Cotter, after witnessing a traumatic incident with a patient. After the incident with the patient, Dr. Cotter’s life takes a turn for the worse. Unexplainable, terrifying occurrences start to take place, starting to affect her whole life and the people close to her. While still dealing with past trauma and issues within her close relationships, Dr. Cotter must face all her demons to survive her new, frightening, reality. This movie may sound like a typical, psychological horror film, however, there are many elements to this movie that make it unique compared to other horror movies.
The movie starts out with Dr. Rose Carter meeting with a patient named Laura. She is in a very traumatic, vulnerable state and won’t seem to talk to anyone. Laura is convinced that something is coming for her, trying to kill her. She explains that this “thing” looks like different people; strangers, relatives, even people in her life who have passed away. Rose assured her that no one was coming after her, even though it may feel like it. Moments later, Laura’s demeanor completely changes. A forced, creepy smile appears across Laura’s face. She takes a piece of broken glass and carves a smile-like shape across her face, finishing by slicing her neck open. Dr. Rose Carter is traumatized and starts to spiral after witnessing something so horrid. Rose’s mother had also committed suicide years ago, so this tragic event brought back traumatic memories and had resurfaced emotions and PTSD that Rose had not fully dealt with yet. This almost seemed to bother Rose more than the fact that she could be getting haunted by a demon.
No one seems to believe Rose when she tells them that she thinks that she is cursed. Her fiancé, Trevor, slowly started to distance himself from the situation, and her in general. He thought that she was going crazy, and so did everyone else. The only person that believed Rose was her ex-boyfriend, Joel. He spent more and more time with her and tried his best to help Rose figure out what was actually going on. Joel was also a cop who was assigned to Laura’s case, so he could help her get more information on what truly happened.
One aspect of this movie that really stood out to me was the psychological horror and thrill behind it. If you witnessed someone take their life from behind haunted y this demonic entity, you would be haunted next. This could happen to absolutely anyone; children, elders, close friends, it doesn’t matter who. This ups the suspense and darkness in the film. Another part about the film that I really enjoyed was some of the jump scares. It can be hard to scare me when it come to jump scares, because in a lot of horror movies, the jump scares can be very predictable and overused. However, “Smile” had some that had me, and the rest of the audience in the movie theatre actually scared. One jump scare in particular that was very unexpected was the scene where Rose’s sister starts walking up to Rose’s car. Rose was sitting in the driver’s seat with the doors locked, and her sister breaks her neck and hangs down, smiling at Rose through the window. This was such an effective jump scare that it would have gotten everyone feeling uneasy. However, they put part of this scene in the trailer, which kind of ruined some of the suspense. Another scene that stood out to me was when Rose was meeting with her therapist, and she was talking about some of the recent events she has been experiencing and how she felt like she was losing everyone who was close to her in her life. During the meeting, she gets a phone call. Rose answers it, and low and behold, it was her therapist calling. Her face drops, and she then realizes that she was not actually in a meeting with her therapist; it was the demon who cursed her. This was a shocking moment, and you could hear ‘oh no’s’ and gasps in the audience.
Overall, the 2022 film “Smile” was a good psychological thriller and horror movie. It was not the scariest movie of the year by any means, but it had a good plot and was very suspenseful throughout the entirety of the film. The acting was very believable, and the producer and director did a great job on making the audience feel very uncomfortable and uneasy. There were also a few good jump scares that would get a lot of people’s attention. If you are a big fan of psychological horror films, I recommend hitting your nearest movie theatre to give this movie a try.
