Smile (2022)

Plot of Smile: Psychiatrist Rose Cotter works in a hospital and when Laura, a young woman is admitted she is called to assist her. Laura claims that she is being pursued by an entity which manifests itself as smiling people, some of whom she knows and that she is scheduled to die. A terrified Laura suddenly becomes calm and slits her throat with a shard of pottery. Rose then begins to see a smiling Laura silently looking at her, and, since she appears to be mad to her fiancée, Trevor, she falls back on Joel, a policeman and former partner for help. Looking through the police files they find that Laura had witnessed the gory suicide of her professor, who had witnessed a previous suicide. Rose’s behaviour seems to become increasingly strange to those around her, particularly after Joel finds that one person in the chain had avoided suicide, apparently by killing someone randomly before a witness, who became the recipient of the curse. Laura retreats to the former derelict family home, but is confronted with visions of her dead mother revealing her childhood trauma. But how can she rid herself of the curse?

Content: No sex or nudity, although what seems to have become a obligatory shower scene is included. Possibly a bit of social drinking. There are a number of unpleasant and gruesome suicides, starting with Laura, and then photographs and videos in the police files. Rose has meetings with her boss in the hospital and with her therapist, but as time passes these people are sometimes images presented by the curse, so Rose ceases to know whether on not she is hallucinating. Her nephew unwraps a parcel at his birthday party to reveal Rose’s dead cat. The former family home is a shack in the woods to which Rose retreats, but is confronted with images of herself as a child and her mother dying of an overdose. This is an 18, a rating not to be taken lightly.

A View: This outing achieved what to me is the ultimate sign of success, it covered its production costs on its first weekend and went on to make a fortune. The critics likened it to “It Follows” and “The Ring” and although there are similarities Smile overcomes the plot holes in those movies. I had not heard of any of the actors except Kal Penn, whose presence was somehow reassuring. It is a film which effectively conveys constant tension, so if you like that sort of thing it is worth a view, even for a small download fee. There is a sequel in the works.

Fun Fact: Sosie Bacon who plays Rose is the daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick.