Smile
★★ ½
Smile isn't necessarily my type of horror film, one which relies heavily on jump scares to keep the audience on edge. Some of these moments work better than others, with some scenes severely sitting on the edge of cheesiness. But that's not where my main issues lied with Smile.
This is a film that towards the beginning, I mentally had rated high in my mind, but my favorable opinion started to slowly deteriorate over its too long, two-hour runtime. This is mainly due to the way it handles the issues of mental health and suicide. Director/writer Parker Finn shows some promising talent with his first feature-length film and at first I liked how he was balancing this supernatural presence with the way people deal with personal trauma. But by the end, I felt like he was using a subject matter that is extremely personal to many people as a crutch to showcase his monster and to set up a franchise for himself. I'm sure that there will be people that feel completely different, but as the gimmicks and scares started to loose their luster, it allowed space for me to scoff at how the film ended. I felt a bit cheated, which is a shame because there is a lot to like about this film. Including an incredible performance by Sosie Bacon, who does an amazing job of conveying a careful character who starts to mentally crumble before our eyes. With the box office success of Smile, I'm sure we will see many more installments of this story. Which is a shame because I see a lot of promise from Finn and would like to see him take chances with different genres.
