'Smile': A Harmless Gesture Turns Sinister

Parker Finn's feature film Smile, which is adapted from his 11-min short film, Laura Hasn't Slept, is the newest confident horror directorial debut that has the same formula as Asian horrors where there’s a sinister pattern in several mysterious deaths in which the main character is trying to solve... or avoid... or both.

Paramount Pictures

The main character is Dr. Rose Cotter, played with conviction by Sosie Bacon, a clinical psychiatrist who starts experiencing menacing occurrences after witnessing a traumatic incident with her patient. A patient who turned a harmless gesture of smiling into something sinister.

The plot is very similar to The Ring, or The Grudge, or any other horror movies wherein the lead tries to solve and survive a curse that plagues a series of mysterious deaths. This time, the ploy is neither watching a cursed videotape or seeing oneself in a bagua mirror. As you have guessed, it's when you see a person smile. And not your ordinary smile, a smile that's either going to creep you out or make you uncomfortable because of how unhinged it looks. It doesn't help when that smile is associated with several jumpscares that could give one nightmares.

More than that, Smile has an underlying message about how society treat people with mental illnesses. But sometimes that feels like a stretch when the curse itself is revealed to be an evil entity that goes beyond mental health. It does however exploit people with traumas so there's that.

Smile somewhat struggles to find the perfect balance of dramatic and frightening tone to reach its full potential in incorporating an entity that exploits people’s trauma. A terrifying popcorn horror nevertheless. It's scary, seldom funny, and a decent addition to horrors of the same kind.

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"Smile" opens in PH cinemas September 28.

MTRCB RATING: R-16

'Don't Worry Darling' - The Movie is an Intrigue in Itself

Not mentioning the drama surrounding the making and the press tour of Don't Worry Darling is hard but it is imperative to mention that the movie is a big intrigue in itself--whether it's the uber-perfect atmosphere of the Victory community, an experimental company town where husbands work for a top-secret Victory project led by Frank (Chris Pine), or Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack's (Harry Styles) handful of steamy love scenes that recall Lady Gaga and Adam Driver in House of Gucci.

Warner Bros. Pictures

These however might be merely just an attractive façade. As when cracks start to happen in Alice's luxurious life as a housewife, she couldn't help but question her reality.

Don't Worry Darling's premise is probably something that many have seen before, and whatever one's thinking about it could be true, but Olivia Wilde knows how to make sinister and intriguing things look cool, flashy, and entertaining to watch. This director knows what she's doing and was able to create some of the coolest sequences I've seen this year. And even as a supporting character Bunny, she knows how to command a spotlight. Florence Pugh as the lead however is the true star and heart of the film. She's already a star as we know but she's able to shine brighter here as a mid-century woman who can also convey modernity at once. If there's a reason to watch this, it's to see the parallel of Pugh, Styles, and Wilde's character in and out of the movie. That is if you're also malicious and suspicious of everything behind the scenes like most people are. But the movie's cast is truly its strongest suit. 

Also worth mentioning is the evident craft. The costumes, the hair, the score, the choreographies, the production design are as perfect as the veneer the movie is trying to display. All are captured by Matthew Libatique's playful and always moving lenses and John Powell's score that will remind us of another Florence Pugh movie, Midsommar. It's breathy and heartracing reminiscent of the synchronized crying and breathing in the Ari Aster cult film.

Don't Worry Darling is better seen without any knowledge of what it's about so it's better to stop here. But again, whatever you're thinking might be correct. It's just a matter of enjoying the cast and its cool sequences.