Smile 2 Review
If 2022’s Smile made anyone smile, first-time filmmaker Parker Finn turned a straightforward but powerful horror film about a grinning, evil force into a box office hit that brought in almost $217 million. It should come as no surprise that he has now been offered the chance to write a larger, more lavishly outfitted sequel, which continues the smirking specter’s pass-the-parcel possession campaign and takes place six days after the original.
It would be pro forma for a cash-injected horror sequel to expand upon its original premise, prying further into a mythology that the original only hinted at and teasing out fresh ideas to mix things up. Finn, however, takes a different approach. With no desire to demystify his grinning monstrosity, the writer/director opts instead for what is essentially a retread of the first film’s formula, though examined through a different lens. Where previously his daisy-chain demon had a psychologist wrestling with her own mind in a blunt yet undeniably creepy examination of mental health and the effects of trauma, this sequel takes a swing at modern celebrity and the harsh, unblinking stare of the public eye.
After a breathlessly effective single-shot prologue linking the two films, Smile 2 wastes little time in flashing its heightened budget, dropping a quick Drew Barrymore cameo before drawing us into the heavily sequinned world of pop sensation Skye Riley (superbly performed — on and off mic — by former pink Power Ranger and Princess Jasmine Naomi Scott). Riley is poised to embark upon a huge tour, one year after her drug and alcohol abuse crescendoed with a lethal car crash that left her bearing scars inside and out. But, after witnessing her dealer pulverise his own face with a free weight, she begins to see dead-eyed rictus faces wherever she turns — ones considerably more sinister than the looks of sycophantic affirmation she’s accustomed to.
The scares are used sparingly.
This time, the titular smile has two sides: Riley, still recovering from her own trauma, is compelled to put on a pleasant front and act on demand — “lights, camera, bitch, smile” — despite the emotional and physical costs, sobbing backstage and frantically pulling out clumps of her hair. Riley’s subsequent disintegration is an agonizingly public one as her nerves get even more frayed by progressively terrifying images that make it harder to distinguish between what is real and what is not.
Finn can have a great time with everything from grip-and-grin photo ops and crazy fans to lickspittle aides, diva behavior, and celebrity stalkers (restraining orders aren’t much help when your pursuer is a murderous demon). This is an appropriate canvas in a world where fake smiles are the norm. This offers a very extreme example for anyone who has ever pondered what type of pressure may lead a performer to insist that their rider include a basket of kittens. The two-hour+ runtime, however, deprives the discussion of energy and drags it to the point where the economy could have worked better, even though it is undoubtedly sharp (as are knives and sharp pieces of glass).
The scares, by contrast, are judiciously deployed, Finn once more relying on a gradual sense of general unease punctuated by an assortment of gruesome, uncomfortably close-up body-horror moments (from compound fractures to dislocated jaws and a particularly wince-inducing IV) to drive the point home — accompanied by some upsettingly squelchy foley work. The hallucinatory fake-outs are largely effective and occasionally inspired (death by backing dancers!), but simply knowing that’s what they are, and the rules of the possession that have carried over from the previous film leeches tension and slightly deflates the otherwise good horror set-pieces.
With an admirably ragged turn from Scott, Smile 2 is a louder, broader, shinier, and more ambitious interpretation of the previous film’s compelling premise, all wrapped up in a satire of the entertainment industry. However, It doesn’t capitalize on the original’s unnerving premise, demonstrating that bigger isn’t necessarily better. An ear-to-ear smile, yet a soft smirk.