Lackluster Concept / Great Execution

I think this series gets unfairly written off as bottom-of-the-barrel slop –mostly due to its premise. High-concept horror generally lends itself to the kind of low-quality-and-we-know-it dreck that people will only watch when they’re getting hammered in the dorm rooms or you’ve crammed them in an airplane for ten hours. But since seeing the first entry, it’s been my opinion that what sets Smile apart is that it is played entirely straight. No, it doesn’t hold up to the kind of fine-toothed examination that you might expect from Mauler types, and unlike the first film — which had something to say about the way that experiencing trauma can alienate one from the world — I don’t think there is much substance to be found in the subtext this time around. But it does succeed at delivering a very specific kind of terror.

I guess if I had to sum this up, Smile is a strange beast because it is a lackluster concept, being propped up by bafflingly competent execution. By the merits, the dialogue is decidedly mid to sub-mid, but the camera work is very solid, as are the scares. One scene in particular was so chilling that my immersion was broken by having to internally give my compliments to the writer/director. But I think that more than anything else, what carries this movie is the investment of its lead actress, Naomi Scott. Apparently she played Jasmine in the live action Aladdin a few years back, and maybe if I’d known that it would have been harder to get on board with her performance here, but holy shit does she sell this part.

On the spectrum of actor investment, there’s a range of possible performances where the portrayal feels authentic. Past the border of that range, you get things like actors phoning it in or hamming it up, and in recent years in particular, it seems to me that there’s been a reluctance to portray female protags in extreme states of distress because of concerns about “sexism” and “representation.” So audiences are frequently being treated to more subdued and pedestrian performances even in movies that need to be driven by high emotion. Thankfully,that is not the case here. Scott doesn’t hold anything back. The materials also deal with substance abuse and addiction, and as someone with some personal experience with those subjects, I can testify that I found her depiction of a person who is totally out of control to be very convincing. I don’t feel any compunction about saying that her acting single-handedly elevates this film.

What both films truly excel at is giving a sensation of menace. The demon is demonic in the most serious way imaginable. It is a pure representation of madness and evil, but more importantly, it feels alien. Eldritch and religious terror both have this in common, that the threat comes from a place outside of human understanding, revealing the smallness of humanity’s reality frame. But in the end, what troubles the film is precisely the fact that it has overpowered its antagonist. The demon’s primary means of attack is through manipulating their victim’s perceptions, which is standard fare, but Smile extends this concept well past the point of mere jump scares, using it as the grounds for an escalating series of rug-pulls throughout the film.

Unfortunately, these rug-pulls eventually begin to feel less than fair. One reveal is so momentous that it implies that the protagonist has been walking around, talking to people, doing dance routines, and basically performing all the work of a wildly popular pop star, all while having her consciousness completely submerged in illusions in which she is battling for her life against a demonic entity. There may be times when it can work, but this ain’t Fight Club. There isn’t any clear standard by which the audience can look back and see how the illusory events and the real events are reconciled. And in the end, there’s a chance that some viewers may feel like the writers are simply cheating, and if a viewer does get this impression it is probably because they are right. Ultimately, this ends up subverting the stakes of the conflict, but I can’t explain more than that without serious spoilers.

Final Thoughts

Dialogue gets clunky and there may be some minor plot holes, but the strength of Naomi Scott’s performance is wild and the camera work and direction are also excellent. If you’re into horror or you’re looking for some thrills for the evening, you could do a lot worse.