Grin and Bear It: "Smile"

Over the past eight to ten years, there has been and increasing number of smart, well-produced, and frequently, provocative horror films with more on their minds than simple jump scares. "The Babadook", "It Follows", and even something like "Martyrs" come to mind. 

All these films are thematically rich and as some would say, textually rich with metaphor, if not allegory throughout the narratives and that inform the contexts/subtexts of the tales. To be sure, none of this is new, necessarily. There have been earlier films, richly themed and stoked with political and/or psychological themes, going back to the Silent Era.

What's a little different in our time is it seems as though there are more directors and writers using the horror genre to explore trauma and grief and any number of social issues that are confronting us now, from  the division that is rife in the United States, to racism, and more, with a sense that even though the monster may be shown to have its own existence, often we find the monster within, as well.

With "Smile", we have another work that explores the cursed videotape trope that when passed onto successive victims, each person dies within an allotted time. In this case, the evil is passed along by an encounter with a suicide that triggers visions of dead family members and people smiling with rictus grins, toothy and accompanied by a downward glance/glare. Think of Malcolm McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange", or Nicholson in"The Shining"; it's a look that Kubrick utilized to often sickening effect because you knew it presaged shit hitting the fan in a very bad way.

"Smile" is rooted in trauma. Rose, a psychiatrist who works in an emergency clinic meets Laura who tells her that she, Laura, is being pursued by an evil something and cuts her throat in front of Rose with the aforementioned grin on her face. Laura feels nothing as the knife carves its arc from her left ear en route to the right before she collapses. 

From there, Rose begins to hallucinate and I won't really go too much into the film itself because, if you have seen "The Ring" (either the original Japanese version directed by Hideo Nakata or Gore Verbinski's version with Naomi Watts), you pretty much have seen "Smile" absent the son who is Rachel's support in the latter version. 

In "Smile", it's Joel, Rose's ex and a cop who is convinced that Rose is being haunted by some malevolent force, after a lot of tracking of 20 victims but one who survived by killing someone else in a gruesome manner before a witness who would be traumatized and carry the entity away with them. Sure, you'll spend the rest of your life in prison for murder, but you will be free of a malevolent force. 

"Smile" has been receiving glowing reviews and a lot of emphasis is on how Parker Finn's script dives very much into trauma and guilt. The malevolent entity/energy feeds on both and many feel that the film is a metaphor, as well, for how stress is passed along and damages people through its passing. The film could be read as a commentary on the stressors that abound in modern America and as such, makes for a compelling watch, at least intellectually.

There are visceral "scares", certainly, but note the quotation marks. I realize that I don't share one significant reaction that others seem to have: in a world with far greater horrors and existential and political threat, movies like "Smile" just aren't that scary for me.

Actually, few and far between are the horror films that I find effective in terms of generating fear or dread. I can think of five over my entire life that have affected me during and after viewing, but for the most part, I'm just a tough sell. 

On the best of days, I might be genuinely thrilled by the inventiveness of a good horror flick but with films like "Smile", I find myself more and more encountering the film as a text. I can still enjoy it, I can still relish the fine performances, and I am very often impressed by the special effects (particularly good here), but as for being absorbed by the film, very rarely does that happen.

Ari Aster's "Hereditary" and "Midsommar" were particularly engaging and David Eggers "The Witch" (or "The VVitch") was genuinely unsettling. These films work because the directors bury the subtexts and get on with developing a sense of foreboding, slowly and deliberately, giving just enough to knock you off your pins at the right time.

To be fair, a number of these other films do, too, but it seems that the nature of the script, and very often the reiteration that you are seeing people dealing with trauma or disconnection or any number of anxieties, precludes getting lost in or giving myself over to the film. Very often, my empathy is called on but I am, at that point, taken out of the film, because a) I've seen enough of these to know where they're going and b) my approach shifts from a more feeling-based involvement to a more intellectual involvement. I feel like I'm reading a book more than watching a movie. 

That many of these films deal with trauma and that the metaphors are pushed forward so much probably only bothers me. Again, many reviewers seem to be able to give themselves over to the films more completely. 

To reiterate, "Smile" is a very good movie. The score and sound design are kept at a certain level slightly above the threshold of what is audible, resulting in that sense of paranoia that Rose feels with greater frequency. It's also a damned good-looking movie and the use of drone shots turning the world upside down is well-played, not to mention the use of Dutch angles to disorient further, back and forth mid-shots as the edits cut between one person and another in what are essentially portraits. 

And the special effects are genuinely special and worth the price of admission. But scary? I can't say that. I haven't been able to say that about most films and least of all, many of the newer wave of these context-rich, metaphor laden movies.

My sense of it is that instead of using the horror tropes as metaphors of trauma, let the horror be the trauma itself. An entity that possesses someone out of nowhere is far more disturbing than an evil possession of someone who is already traumatized and dealing with loss and guilt.

Sosie Bacon gives Rose a vast repository of smarts and motivation despite being on the cusp of cratering. Many of the hallucination visited on her are extremely disturbing or would be, if I wasn't so jaded. But Bacon brings shade and depth to this woman on the verge of a huge nervous breakdown.

In fact, there isn't a bum note in the performances across the board, but Bacon is in almost every scene and watching her go through the harrowing events we encounter with her is or would be, emotionally exhausting. I say "would be", because of my prior experience with the genre. 

There are some other new horror films out this season that I do want to see. I assuredly do want to see "Barbarian", for example, and I am hoping that it might get pass my defenses.

I think, too, that the movie does have its satirical edge, though that's not prominent. We are often told to put on a game face, buck up, and move on from traumatic events in our lives, so the choice of having the victims smile so demonically is really on the nose. 

Also, the business as usual of well-meaning amateur and professional therapists weighing in on what Rose is going through would be easy to read as almost seriocomic at certain points. However, it is all played straight to good effect to reinforce how we don't really listen to victims very often and how much we relegate major emotional upset and problems to "nothing but" categories or to be dealt with by getting some rest, more sleep, etc.

I do recommend "Smile"; I really do. I would be very interested in how or whether people who have seen the film were genuinely scared/shocked/surprised by it. Leave a comment! I look forward to hearing more.