Bacon stars as psychiatrist Dr. Rose Cotter, who witnesses one of her patients die by suicide in front of her. The shocking death triggers a domino effect that passes a curse onto Rose, who begins having hallucinations of people with creepy smiles everywhere she looks.
So once the psychiatrist started to suffer from similar hallucinations, Rose decided to investigate what was really going on. As it turns own, Rose is cursed by trauma, which in Smile is represented by a shapeshifting apparition that scares its victim until their mind is shattered.
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.
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.
Then, in the very last sequence, the demon removes its face to reveal its true appearance — a pale, lifeless entity with a seemingly endless grin. When the creature literally crawls inside Rose and completely takes her over, we're led to believe that this may have actually happened.
Film Theory: How to BEAT the Smile Monster! (Smile 2022)
How did the Smile curse start?
Rose Cotter, who witnesses one of her patients die by suicide in front of her. The shocking death triggers a domino effect that passes a curse onto Rose, who begins having hallucinations of people with creepy smiles everywhere she looks.
The demon can alter a person perceptions to mislead them into thinking they've managed to beat it, before resuming the haunting as before. As such, the only way to be rid of this entity is to pass on the curse which carries it on to another person.
Not only is Rose unable to defeat the demon in Smile's ending but, in a truly vicious twist, the entity waits until Joel arrives before possessing and killing her. This means that it will be able to live on in him since the curse needs a witness to pass itself on.
There, the entity takes the form of her mother, revealing that, after overdosing, she asked a then 10-year-old Rose to call for help. Rose declined and her mother died. Rose forgives herself at that moment, but that doesn't deter the creature, which transforms into a monstrous version of Rose's mother.
We learn that the young Rose allowed her mother to die rather than call for help because she was both afraid and angry with her mother. The demon believes this long-repressed revelation will paralyze Rose with guilt, making the task of subduing and overtaking her easier.
With the colors, we wanted to do something unusual. We had read this study that was from back in the sixties where they found out that this sort of Pepto Bismol pink color somehow was supposed to make violent inmates less violent. So my production designer, Lester Cohen, and I, really grabbed onto that.
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.
If there were no one to see her die, no new trauma would be created, and the curse would be broken. While still not ideal, given that Rose would have to die, this is the only way to stop the monster for good.
She pours it on herself and lights a match. After spending our time seeing things from Rose's perspective, often in uncomfortably closeup shots, we see her final moments through Joel's eyes, who can't look away despite his horror. The curse has now been passed on to him.
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 ...
Even though Rose did everything she was supposed to do — that we're supposed to do to process our own trauma — the monster still won. The cycle will continue. Smile writer-director Parker Finn characterizes the two endings of his film as an attempt to get ahead of audiences' expectations.
One of the most heart-breaking casualties in Smile was Rose's cat, Mustache, but the film never revealed what actually happened to it. Smile follows Rose (Sosie Bacon), a doctor who gets cursed by an entity that presents itself through people with a sinister smile.
It is a sadistic and violent demonic entity that feeds off of the trauma of its victims, tormenting them to sustain itself, but also because it enjoys causing its victims to suffer, until they eventually kill themselves, or until it possesses them and forces them to kill themselves.
Drenched in oil, a grinning Rose is forced to light herself on fire before Joel's very eyes. Soon enough, Joel will endure the unspeakable hallucinations that Laura, Rose, and many others had to face. Easily being the most likable character in Smile, Joel now houses the curse.
While its MO was for Rose to harm herself, the demon was also capable of physically interacting with the real world, as shown by the twist of it impersonating Dr. Madeline and attacking Rose. Thus, the monster could have feasibly killed Rose's cat.
It could be theorized that due to its difference in behavior, Smile's entity is a collector of souls, quickly consuming its victims and moving to the next, only gaining more strength with each one. A moment between Rose and the entity in Smile supports this theory, as it tells Rose that she will stay with it forever.
