Smile's messy treatment of mental illness and trauma throughout one hour fifty-five minutes seems to be intentional and is bound to leave you feeling uncomfortable. The theme of inheriting mental illness and walking down a path that you have lived dreading all your life is poignant.
The concept of a smile is a powerful element in the movie, as it represents the facade that people with depression, anxiety, or trauma often wear to hide their pain and struggles. By incorporating this relatable horror element, the film strikes a chord with many viewers.
The Smile movie explained the metaphor for a person's control over their mind in response to trauma, and the pressure people feel to cover up their struggles with fake happiness. As the creature makes it clear to Rose during the Smile ending, she is a prisoner of her own mind.
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 horror in this film lies in the fact that trauma and mental illness do not discriminate: the monster can be anyone. Smile centers on a therapist, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), and it's no mistake she works in mental healthcare.
CANNOT stress this enough - Massive trigger warning for suicide. There was way too much of it, and not enough warning. Every 15 minutes there was another graphic suicide scene, and/or some scene involving a psychotic break.
Ok so the movie Smile is based around a curse/entity that feeds and spreads through trauma. The main character Rose gets the Trauma both from her mother's death when she is young and also seeing her patient who had the Trauma die violently.
Smile does fit neatly in the psychological, jump–scare horror genre, reminiscent of It Follows. However, the film contains intense themes surrounding mental illness and the stigma surrounding it, which comes off as highly offensive rather than informative.
The MPAA rating has been assigned for “strong violent content and grisly images, and language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a couple of kisses and hugs, many scenes of gruesome suicides and attempted murders including a man gutting himself with garden sheers, a woman setting herself on fire and a woman ...
Finn says the face at 1:48:20 is a “true look at the evil thing that's been hiding behind all the smiles.” They called the entity Lollipop — thus explaining the use of The Chordettes' “Lollipop” at the start of the end credits — and this is what happens at the end of every cycle as the beast physically enters the ...
Rose dies in Smile's ending because she was only able to overpower the entity once. She had enough fight in her to take on the gangly demonic monstrosity and even appeared to kill it, shattering a lantern over its head.
The grief monster rips off its skin, revealing its horrible, true form, then snaps open Rose's mouth, crawling inside of her. Fully possessed by the demon, Rose douses herself in gasoline and sets herself on fire — just as the real Joel bursts inside her home and witnesses her death, becoming the next victim.
“You have wounds that never fully healed,” says Madeline, but Rose has already self-diagnosed: She is suffering, she insists, from “fleeting moments of stress-induced hallucinations.” This diagnosis comes along with a proposed solution. Rose demands a prescription for Risperdal, an oral antipsychotic medication.
Smile is one of the newest and scariest horror movies currently in theaters. The psychological thriller follows a therapist who, after witnessing the suicide of one of her patients, finds herself in the heat of disturbing and supernatural experiences.
This film is far from as graphic and disturbing as Ari Aster's “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” but there are still some disturbing scenes that make members of the audience want to plug their ears and squeeze their eyes shut. The jump scares are also intense but there aren't so many as to overdo it.
But the biggest sin of “Smile” is that it just isn't scary. The movie has to rely on fakeout jump scares like a burglar alarm and even opening a can of cat food because it knows it can't pull off scenes with actual danger or violence. A bad dream sequence can't be taken seriously because Rose would never act that way.
“Please watch this movie with discretion. It's a great horror film. However, no spoilers, if you are somebody who deal with mental health issues, if you're in a dark time right now I would maybe say hold off.
When compared to other terrifying horror movie demons, the Smile demon remains mysterious throughout much of the movie. It's only at the end, when Rose is confronted by the demon at her mother's house, that she sees the Smile demon's true form.
Despite the happy-sounding title, the movie Smile is not for children. It is a very graphic horror movie that shows several mutilated bodies in all their gory detail.
Smile clearly wants the audience to see the connection between Rose's curse and mental illness. Throughout the movie, characters use therapy buzzwords and often suggest that Rose's mental state is a result of her genetics and past trauma.
The ending of the film is particularly sad since it proves that as soon as Joel agrees to help Rose figure out what's happening, he isn't able to extract himself from her, and he will never break free.
The first thing Rose does after putting an end to the entity's curse is to visit her ex-boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner), a cop who had been helping her throughout. Rose explains to Joel she broke up with him because she felt vulnerable by his side and didn't want anyone to get too close after what she did to her mother.
