#80: Smile 2
Release Date: October 18th, 2024
Format: DCP (Cinemark in Downey, CA)
Written by: Parker Finn
Directed by: Parker Finn
3.5 Stars
Just for a moment, imagine you are writer/director Parker Finn. Your debut movie for Paramount Pictures, Smile, just grossed $217 million against a $17 million budget. All of a sudden you’re quite popular with the Paramount execs, and they are very, very interested in a sequel. I could imagine a scenario where Parker Finn tells them, “Yeah, I guess I could do a sequel, but I actually had some other projects in mind.”
That would probably be followed by Paramount execs saying something like, “Oh, cool cool. If we like the script, maybe we might be interested in something in the range of Smile’s budget, or smaller. But if you were to write and direct a Smile sequel, how’s a $28 million budget sound? Pretty good huh?”
Finn chose the Smile sequel, and I get it, but now that he’s made two of them, I’m hoping the next time the producers come to him with an offer for Smile 3, he has the confidence to say ‘no’ and choose a new path.
And it’s not because I don’t like these Smile movies. Like I said, they are solid horror movies, and scary. But I also think he’s shown a knack for character development and dialogue, and I’d be interested to see what else he could do.
In Smile 2, Finn tells the story of a Grammy-winning global pop star named Skye Riley, a recovering drug addict, who tweaks her back during dance rehearsals for her upcoming tour and seeks out her old drug dealer to score Vicodin to deal with the pain. Unbeknownst to Skye, her dealer is the target of the Smile entity, a sort of possessive demon, and he finally succumbs to its mind games, brutally killing himself with a weightlifting plate in front of her, effectively passing the possession on to her.
Will Skye be able to survive her demonic possession? You’ll have to wait until the final shot of the movie to find out.
But again, Finn’s writing and directing are almost too elevated for this film’s schtick. There were long stretches of the movie where I was more invested in the Skye Riley character and her relationship with her childhood best friend and mother, and the trauma of witnessing the death of her boyfriend in a car accident years earlier, than I was with the horror aspect of the film. I’m not disappointed when the movie transitions from the dramatic scenes back to the scares, but it’s obvious that Finn doesn’t need those scares as a crutch. He has a natural ability with pacing his dramatic dialogue and he knows how to get the goods from his actors.
And speaking of the acting, Skye Riley is played by Naomi Scott, an incredible actress I had never seen or even heard of.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that her performance is as good as any performance I can think of in a horror film. She is absolutely incredible. Mind you, that in this month alone, I’ve seen Marilyn Burns’s performance in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance in Halloween, and Kathy Bates’ performance in Misery. I’m confident in saying that her performance belongs in that esteemed company.
My wish? Parker Finn has found his muse in Naomi Scott and goes on to write an original suspense drama in which she can star.
More likely? Smile 2 makes a ton of money, and Paramount backs the Brinks truck up to Finn and tempts him to unleash that smiling demon one more time.
