Smile (2022) - A Messy Message

Smile (2022) follows the story of Rose Cutter (Sosie Bacon), a therapist who witnesses one of her patients commit an awful act in her office. It turns out this patient was plagued by an entity that latches onto whoever witnesses its deadly deeds, creating a train of trauma wherever it goes.

The monster takes residence in its victims mind, providing oodles of scares with disturbing hallucinations, including causing its namesake: to make give everyone a wide, unsettling, unblinking smile. Most of these hallucinations are deployed in unusually effective jump scares. It's rare that a movie uses such tactics without being irritating, but Smile finds the right balance between unsettling and jumpy that makes for effective horror. Similarly, relying on hallucinations for scares or storytelling can often leave the watcher feeling frustrated - why should we stay invested, if we never know what's real or what's not? Does anything matter, if nothing is real? Smile, for the most part, knows when to hide its hallucinations well. Most of the time, the smiling itself is a dead giveaway that we're in Rose's head, and there are subtle clues elsewhere that show the difference between psychological and reality. This means that when we're not sure what's real, we're at least invested in what Rose will do next. Both of these elements, usually frustrating in horror, are utilized well here - for the most part. (More on this later.)

The monster of Smile is an allegory, and its meaning is clear: the monster in Smile is trauma. Each traumatic event leads the victim down a dark road until they feel they have no choice but to cause someone else trauma with their own death. The film slides this across the table to you in a careful, subtle way, so you feel just a little bit smug with yourself for figuring out its all a metaphor.

But how does that metaphor hold up?

For the most part, pretty well. And after a truly disastrous birthday party, with Rose's sister (Gillian Zinser) yelling she's "traumatized" her nephew (Matthew Lamb), you think you've guessed what the twist will be - after all, trauma is our monster-stand-in, right? The film is expanding it's message to say it's not just those final actions that inflict trauma, but the actions leading to it. Sure, Rose will defeat the monster, but it won't matter, because she's already passed it on. She's already made a copy of the videotape, so to speak.

There is a pretty great finale scene of Rose facing the monster for the last time - facing her childhood trauma for the last time, and overcoming it. It leaves us with a message about how trauma can be faced and tackled and made livable, wrapping its themes up in a nice bow.

But remember the ongoing hallucinations? Yeah, it turns out, Rose didn't manage to conquer her trauma after all.

And you know, it's almost worth the annoyance of that, to see the final form of the Smile Monster. It's a standout moment, and a wonderful monster design.

Ultimately though, it leads to the unravelling of the allegory. Because Rose doesn't win out, against the monster. The cycle is continued. And it's not so much that the ending is an unhappy one that makes it irritating - Ring has a similar one, and an even bleaker implication - it's what it means for the message. We're left to believe there is no true escape or healing from trauma, and no other options. It's an unsatisfying, untrue way to leave your allegory, and feels more like an attempt to subvert audience expectations than truly thought through.

That said, overall, Smile is a good psychological horror. Bacon carries the film with strong, sympathetic acting in a role that could easily become irritating, and it delivers on its scares.

Just turn it off at the good ending.