Alright, alright, I’ll be quick since everyone and their mother already told you about SMILE (2022). Hold on to your panties, girlies, major spoilers ahead!
Rose Cotter is a caring—too caring, maybe? [gurrrl, chill, you deserve to have a life of your own, sheesh!]—psychotherapist—psychiatrist? the internet keeps referring to her as a psychiatrist but that’s not what I got when I watched the movie because psychiatrists are famously known for their pill-pushing, no bs attitude (read: to them, you are not a whole person, you are an illness) and Rose was nothing but a bundle of cozy vibes (read: she would mother you and listen to you and give you emotional hugs, you know, like an overly sweet psychotherapist that does the most)—working at an Emergency Hospital.
But pause. Why did Rose do the most? Well, luckily for us the movie was not shy abut showing her traumatizing childhood because of course her trauma came from childhood because obviously it did (we humans are so basic lol). Her single mom was severely mentally ill, like, not being able to get out of bed for days on end ill, like, having a bad case of debilitating depression of the kind that would scare a child, you know, like precious Rose. So long story short, little Rose left her mother to die (pill overdose) when she’d asked her to go call for help (closed the bedroom door instead and, hours later, found her lifeless body), so big Rose became a devoted mental health professional to cope with her deep-rooted guilt.
Let’s continue. So yes, Rose is a super hard worker, loved by the entire staff including her boss who looks after her and instructs her to go home because, again, she overdoes it to the point of potential negligence; she obeys and grabs her coat and purse, closes her office door, listens to the phone ringing in the distance and, instead of keep on walking and doing the sensible thing by ending the days-long shift, going home and resting, she runs, quite literally, back into her office [gurrrl, your mama ain’t gonna come back] and picks up the phone and seals her fate.
Turns out, this last-minute patient has the “smile” curse which will latch onto Rose as soon as she (patient) performs a traumatic action—more easily done in the form of a violent, messy, and bloody suicide—in front of her, you see, the curse needs an audience to survive. Doomed, poor Rose sees the patient slash her throat while bearing those frightening unblinking dead eyes and a disturbingly unyielding teeth-baring grin… Rose is now royally f@cked… tick-tock, tick-tock.
At the beginning, Rose thinks her sudden odd behavior is due to her childhood trauma being resurfaced by the traumatic event at work so she, thanks to her boss giving her a paid week off to de-stress, takes it easy and goes back to her own therapist to get some clarity but of course she doesn’t get it because it is not normal human trauma but spooky demon trauma and—I am now fast-forwarding an hour into the movie here so heads-up on the information whiplash—she ends up finding out that in order to get better she has to commit murder in the presence of someone else (audience, remember?) so the curse can jump from her to that third person (instead of being from person-to-person), thus rendering her free and alive, yes, messed up and imprisoned, but alive nonetheless.
Buuuut she doesn’t hurt anyone because she is a good person (or because she STILL blames herself for her mom’s death and wholeheartedly BELIEVES she deserves to be punished for it somehow) and instead tries to stick it to the curse and goes into isolation (no audience) and hurts (okay, kills) herself by immolation at her abandoned childhood home which was a beautifully crafted full-circle moment tbh.
Unfortunately, while Rose thought she was alone when she set herself on fire her detective ex-boyfriend was actually there, behind her, bearing witness to the trauma so get ready for the sequel.
In Love and Fear,
-Marath
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