smile 2

Grim and gory and directed with smatterings of panache by Parker Finn, who also wrote and directed the sleeper hit original, Smile 2 harbors many unsettling jump scares. With its nihilistic bent and gruesome flashbacks, this one could be triggering for those trying to heal past traumas. Set mostly in New York City (though seemingly not filmed on-location; its locations are noted as being throughout the state), pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is back on the comeback scene in the aftermath of bruising drug addictions and a car wreck. In the film, Drew Barrymore, a performer who has struggled with her own past addictions, summarizes the exposition by introducing her on her talk show (in the media landscape, this would be a perfect, welcoming choice for an embittered star to appear). Riley is a Lady Gaga / Billie Eilish hybrid, short-haired and bottle-blonde, wearing oversized sweatshirts and guzzling bottles of VOSS (an antidote from her doctors against using again), and also donning glitzy get-ups for photo shoots and music videos (the film boasts a slew of original glitchy dance-pop songs, many co-written by Scott, that are, surprisingly, not that bad, and are a campy respite from the drudgery). Her mother Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt) acts as her manager; she could have easily been an over-the-top stage mom, but Finn's writing and DeWitt's canny performance shape her with an underlying, simmering, passive aggressive tone. Plagued by back pain after her accident, Riley attempts to score some Vicodin from dealer Lewis (Lukas Gage). The scene is tense, with his jittery, manic presence, and tragedy predictably ensues. Riley becomes infected with the "smile curse," a brutal state of psychosis that's passed along like chain-mail--making sense only in the rules of a horror film or a feverish nightmare. 

The curse, with its reality and time-bending peculiarities, allows Finn to once again roam through macabre mind ticks and tricks freely. Here, his film delves into the pressures and stresses of being a performer within the horror genre, perhaps sometimes alluding to Natalie Portman's demented disorientation in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. The film makes an interesting companion to Coralie Fargeat's The Substance, though that film, especially with its finale, is far more effective. Lester Cohen's skillful production design captures the lavishly wall-papered, cocoon-like setting of Riley's luxury apartment, and the hallowed out insides of a shuttered restaurant, and a drug dealer's lair in winter. The film is most potent, and a bit fun, in a carnival ride way, when it strives for stripped-down scares, like when Skye's dancing troupe, turned into devilishly-grinning hallucinations, follow her around her apartment. It's when the film goes for creaky, CGI-looking effects, that the movie gets less involving, that unfortunately includes the film's ultimate landing. Still, thanks in part to Scott's oscillating emotions and bulging glares, a ride through Skye Riley's mind is a harrowing trip to endure. **1/2

-Jeffery Berg