Smile

20221h 55mR, ,
Language: , ,

After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain. As an overwhelming terror begins taking over her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.

Smile (2022) on IMDb

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79%

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68

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2.8

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Summary

Smile

Smile

Smile is a 2022 American psychological supernatural horror film written and directed by Parker Finn (in his feature directorial debut), based on his 2020 short film Laura Hasn’t Slept.

The film stars Sosie Bacon as a therapist named Rose Cotter, who, after witnessing the bizarre suicide of a patient, goes through increasingly disturbing and daunting experiences, leading her to believe what she is experiencing is supernatural. It also stars Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Kal Penn, and Rob Morgan, as well as Caitlin Stasey playing the same character she played in the short film.

A feature adaptation of Finn’s short was announced in June 2020, and the cast was added in October 2021. Principal photography began that month in New Jersey and ended in November. Originally set for release on the streaming service Paramount+, distributor Paramount Pictures opted to release the film theatrically after positive test screenings.

Smile premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2022, and was released in the United States on September 30. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the visuals, themes, cinematography and Bacon’s performance, but criticized some of its jump scares and noted its similarities to other horror films such as The Ring, It, and It Follows. It was also a box office success, grossing $217.4 million worldwide against a $17 million budget. A sequel is in development and scheduled to be released on October 18, 2024.



Plot

At a psychiatric ward, therapist Dr. Rose Cotter meets graduate student Laura Weaver, who explains that she recently witnessed her professor die by suicide.

Laura claims she is being terrorized by an invisible entity which appears as various smiling people and has foretold her death. Laura begins screaming and panicking and Rose calls for help. Laura suddenly becomes unnaturally calm and smiles, then slits her own throat, terrifying Rose.

The next day, another patient, Carl, smiles like Laura did and shouts to Rose that she is going to die. Rose calls for nurses to restrain Carl, only to realize Carl had been asleep the entire time. Concerned for Rose’s mental well-being, her supervisor Dr. Morgan Desai, orders Rose to take a week off work. Rose’s hallucinations continue, leading those around her to believe she may be a danger to herself. Rose visits her former therapist, Dr. Madeline Northcott, who suggests that Rose’s problems stem from her childhood, in which she witnessed the overdose death of her abusive and mentally ill mother.

Later, Rose attends a birthday party for her nephew, the son of her older sister, Holly. When he unwraps her present, he finds Rose’s dead cat, which has somehow replaced the actual present, horrifying everyone. Rose has a public breakdown and sees a guest smiling unnaturally at her, causing her to fall into a glass coffee table and injure herself. This convinces Rose that she has fallen victim to a curse, although her fiancé Trevor believes she has gone crazy.

Upon learning that Laura’s professor was grinning at her before his death, Rose visits the professor’s widow, Victoria and learns that he had also witnessed a suicide shortly before his own. Rose asks her ex-boyfriend Joel, a police detective, to go through old police records. They find several cases of people who have recently witnessed a person smiling and committing suicide themselves in front of another person.

Rose tries to patch things up with Trevor but becomes enraged after realizing he has called Madeline to provide psychological intervention without asking Rose first. Upset, she leaves to speak with Holly, who also dismisses Rose’s belief in a curse. Holly compares Rose’s behavior to their late mother, and Rose accuses Holly of abandoning her before their mother’s death.

Rose and Joel discover the sole exception in the chain of suicides: convicted murderer Robert Talley. Rose and Joel visit him in jail, where he claims that the entity feeds on trauma, and that the only way to escape it is to brutally kill someone else in front of a witness to traumatize them. Rose angrily rejects this idea. The demon appears at her home in Madeline’s form and taunts her. Rose drives to her hospital with a knife and murders Carl, but it is revealed to be a hallucination. Rose wakes up in her car to find Morgan standing outside. He notices the knife, but she speeds away, prompting him to alert the police.

Rose drives to her abandoned family home, realizing that she cannot pass on the entity’s curse if she dies alone. The entity appears as Rose’s mother, and it is revealed that Rose chose not to call for help for her mother because of her abusive behavior. The demon attacks Rose, and a fire starts in the struggle, seemingly killing the demon. Rose flees the house and returns to Joel’s apartment. Joel smiles at Rose, who realizes this is another hallucination.

In reality, Joel has tracked Rose’s phone to her old house and finds her outside. Rose panics and runs back inside, where the demon reveals its true form – a skinless, semi-humanoid monstrosity with multiple sets of malformed jaws nesting within an enormous, smiling mouth. The sight of the demon’s visage causes Rose to fall into a trance, and the demon possesses her by forcing itself inside her body through her mouth. Joel breaks down the front door and sees a smiling Rose set herself on fire, passing the curse onto him.



Also Known As

  • (original title): Smile
  • (Working Title): Something’s Wrong with Rose
  • Argentina: Sonríe
  • Australia: Smile
Smile
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