Directed by: Parker Finn
Starring: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kal Penn, Robin Weigert, Gillian Zinzer, Caitlin Stasey
Any mystery Smile contains is soon wiped away in a depressing slog of a plot in which there is no villain or any tangible evil which can be defeated. The antagonistic force which is causing people enormous trauma followed by a brief, malicious smile which is the precursor to their suicide is like a virus which feeds off of personal trauma and pain. When it becomes obvious the force is unstoppable, then what is the point? Smile crawls to its inevitable conclusion which doesn't thrill or shock, but simply reiterates what happened before to another poor victim.
Smile takes place over the course of four gray days in the life of emergency trauma psychologist Dr. Rose Cotter (Bacon), who just finished working an overnight shift when a troubled young woman named Laura (Stasey) is referred to her. Laura is in sheer terror when she confides in Rose about her professor who emitted a creepy smile shortly before committing suicide right in front of her eyes. Moments later, Laura develops the same smile and cuts her own throat. The shaken Rose now begins to hallucinate and drops not one but two glasses on her floor (on consecutive evenings) when something frightens her. Her fiance is naturally concerned with Rose's behavior, especially when it seems she wrapped her dead cat as a birthday gift for her nephew and has no recollection of how it occurred.
Dr. Cotter is able to decipher what happened to Laura and why and there is mumbo-jumbo about Rose's own mother's suicide which somehow may be the key to avoiding Laura's fate. This brings Rose to abandoned childhood home which is not only miraculously still standing, but still has the bed inside on which her mother died. Plus, there are items in the garage as well. I suppose the local authorities never condemned the property nor did any realtor have any interest in selling it. I don't know. The land looks pretty plentiful and a real estate agent could have made a pretty penny off of the sale. Sure, you don't want to mention the suicide that happened there many years back, but you do what you must to make some money in this economy.
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