Parker Finn’s Smile has a lot in common with the first Purge movie. Yes it was a sensation, but it took a great premise and never quite focused in on what to do with it, leaving a somewhat unsatisfying, unfulfilled taste in your mouth after you watch it. Thankfully Finn took that criticism to heart, smiling all the way though it. But in a devious way, because Smile 2 delivers on the well of possibilities the first Smile hinted at…while putting on a great show.
After clearing up the loose ends of the first Smile, we enter the life of Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) as seen on the Drew Barrymore Show. After a tragic accident and a year of drug and alcohol abuse recovery, Skye and her momager Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt) feel like she’s ready to go back on a big tour and resume her pop career. After a stressful training session, in a moment of desperation, Skye approaches an old high school friend Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage) for some pain killers since she can’t get prescribed any from her past. But that small desperate moment is about to turn into a nightmare, as Lewis is at day 6 of his own Smile journey, ready to pass that curse onto someone else.
Instead of generically addressing how trauma generically affects people like the first Smile did, the sequel focuses as the plot suggests, on celebrity culture. As you might expect, “smiling” can carry all sorts of strange connotations when you’re in the public eye, and Parker Finn scares us through most of them. Whether it be terrifying overhyped fans completely convinced they have a connection with you, or the fallout from a crazed fan like that, where you can’t breathe, but have to put on a happy face because the show must go on. But as the movie goes on, it goes deeper and more personal into Skye’s specific life. She’s modeled after all those celebs who get mired in addiction and scandal, forced to continue working without adequate time to deal with their past. We see how isolating Skye’s popularity has become now, as she’s scared everyone that isn’t power hungry away from her, making it even easier for this supernatural being to torture her mind and make her lose her grip on reality, like say, a pop star on a bender? While the final act goes off the wheels like the first one did, Smile 2 at least makes the final monster much more interesting and personal than the first movie, more clearly driving home the points Parker Finn is trying to get across to the audience.
As for the scares, Smile 2 uses it’s bigger budget for bigger elaborate jumps. Finn keeps the first Smile’s slow rotating camera and reliance on altering the timing of the jump scare to keep the audience unnerved. I found it hard to figure out when the screech was coming: sometimes just during a casual practice for a big stadium show, or waiting for the creepy figure at the end of the hall to do something. He adds in more complex scares in this one though, like a truly horrifying sequence that would be real nightmare fuel for any introverted celebrity afraid to be alone. Thankfully, Finn cast his lead wonderfully to deliver the pain; Naomi Scott hasn’t had the career I thought she deserved, but interviews show she clearly committed hard to Smile 2, and it took a lot out of her, and her performance shows. By the end, I really felt like I saw a person completely have a nervous breakdown, and became a shell of a human being, absorbing so many fears and scares that she simply couldn’t take any more. For all the money these Smile movies make, it’s shocking how ultimately fatalistic they become by their endings, necessary to keep the franchise going, but still, it’s bold but really tough.
So anyone who thinks becoming famous will be the cure to all their problems, maybe give Smile 2 a watch. You need to fix what’s broken inside of you before that happens, because fame will only exacerbate your troubles and make things worse, on a grander scale. Also, if you’re at a photo shoot with a famous person, don’t make them a shirt please? It’s real creepy and I guarantee that thing goes in the garbage after you give it to them.