If a film succeeds it is usually because it has understood the era to a greater or lesser extent. TO smile Something similar happened to him in 2022 Barbie one year later: its promoters understood that currently the promotional campaign – the image that is broadcast through various media and generates its own impression – is an integral part of the film itself, within the same experience where the fact of going to the cinema is only an intermediate step between hype harvested and the subsequent reaction on social networks. Paramount, for its part, had originally doubted the success of smile: his first idea had been to release it in streamingwithin the non-existent service in Spain Paramount+.
Luckily he changed his mind, and there were those who thought that the disturbing smile that was the focus of Parker Finn’s film could be very juicy in terms of advertising. The studio then orchestrated an ambitious viral campaign to anticipate the premiere, culminating in several Major League baseball games where entire rows of spectators appeared smiling with expressionless eyes. The result was excellent: from a very limited budget, smile It raised $217 million. It was the highest-grossing horror film of the year and convinced Paramount not to carry its remake musical of bad girls to platforms (with another profitable run at the box office). In the face of the inevitable Smile 2the studio executives wanted to design another promotion that does not lag behind the equipment of the first film.
In this case, Smile 2 hasn’t been pitched directly as a sequel, but was more concerned with introducing a new pop star, Skye Riley, into the conversation. His first single, Blood on White Satinwas released in June 2024, with the occasional clue as to what it was really announcing. This was clarified in the following weeks with the excuse that, in Smile 2the person harassed by the smile curse would be a singer played by Naomi Scott (seen in Aladdin or the new version of Charlie’s Angels). The funny thing at this point is that Paramount’s strategy coincided with the premiere of The trap by M. Night Shyamalanwhich centered on another fictional pop star, Lady Raven, played by the director’s daughter.
Be that as it may, the promotion of Smile 2 has tried to renew what was so surprising about the first, but limiting ourselves to talking about advertising and media construction would not fully explain the appeal of this franchise. There must be something in his plot, in that smile, that appeals to people.
What hides the smile
On a purely visual level, the films of smile They are very effective. Finn was alert when, through the short film Laura hasn’t sleptimagined a demonic evil reminiscent of previous horror titles like It follows or (we go back to Shyamalan) The incident. This contagious disease led people to commit suicide, but the success of Finn (who debuted in the feature with smile thanks to the journey of Laura hasn’t slept) was that it was manifested with a broad smile, which was more disturbing the less it corresponded to an absent face. Finn worked from the imaginary of clowns – where that made-up smile is still very popular today, as demonstrated by the closeness on billboards of Joker: Folie à deux and Terrifier 3—, as well as from other inhuman concretions within mass culture, such as the smileys yellowish or that imposition of happiness in which capitalism feels so comfortable.
In a time where Museums of Happiness are something that exists – in Madrid there is one full of facilities with names like “Risódromo” or “Abrazómetro”—and the use of social networks is understood according to the transmission of an image that those around you can understand as aspirational—that is, a “happy” image—the smile ominous of smile It is full of connotations. His willful parade through Finn’s films is disturbing, of course, and is even more impressive thanks to some mannerisms with the camera that the director seems to have picked up from Ari Aster’s films. The sustained planes and extreme angulations—on many occasions the framing of smile are literally turned upside down—they alternate with the loudest and most vulgar scares, typical of Warren Fileto generate constant discomfort.
To all this we must add the intentions of the script, maintained with slight differences between smile and Smile 2. We may have the weakest element here, and at the same time another reason why the first film fit so well. smile is not limited to the terror of his smile flowing according to this recognizable cultural codification and the abundant jumpscaresbut also has to place it in a style of writing that is currently on the rise: psychological writing, where demonic evil can do its thing thanks to the exploitation of a previous trauma that torments the protagonist character. Thus smile encloses its plot in an exclusively individual subjectivitywhere each twist or misfortune must bring solipsistic lament, isolated from the other characters.
It does not fail to fit with that Instagram Universe implicit in the smile—a universe where said laments support the rhetoric of coaching and a supposed mental health that is enough to remain between you and your therapist—but in the particular case of smile In the end this took away the bite of the terror. The black humor and biting images were losing strength as Rose’s (Sosie Bacon) relationship with her trauma became more important, turning smile in a film much more condescending and inane than its abrasive concept deserved.
For Smile 2 Finn has wanted to alleviate these defects according to a very commendable purpose: to conceive a possible saga of smile according to autonomous horror stories where the curse is the only visible mortar. That’s why Smile 2 It is a noticeably different film than the first, and noticeably better.
Terror in The Eras Tour
The link of Smile 2 with the previous film is reduced to a prologue headed by Kyle Gallner (secondary character of smile), necessary to justify the new direction of the curse. Or, rather, to reintroduce the friendly demon behind her, who now moves to a totally new and promising scenario: the massive pop concerts and the artists, like Dua Lipa or Madison Beer, who deal with legions of obsessive fans. Even before being stalked by the curse, Skye Riley brings a lot of suffering as standard: addictions, a dead boyfriend, a controlling mother or a traffic accident that has left her a scar that she tries to hide in her performances.
The emergence of the smile in this context is not only devastating, but it has many more ingredients to play with. Finn takes special advantage of fandom sickly coming to remember the paranoia of Perfect Blue —the mythical anime by Satoshi Kon dedicated to a idol Japanese woman in full collapse—and creating delicious scenes in her malice like the photocall or the subsequent home invasion. These resources, however, and unlike Perfect Blue without going any further—or The trap by Shyamalan, much kinder to the phenomenon—do not attempt to draw an overview of the current pop scene or how it can alienate its visible heads. Finn’s intentions are ultimately more similar to those in the first film.
In that sense Smile 2 is just as predictable as the previous installment, with the script returning to meekly moving through languid and simple phrases that limit the suffering of Scott’s character – “I hurt everyone around me,” the protagonist repeats concisely – without any more being perceived. than a hollow fetish for said suffering. This very contemporary imposture, which did not finish exploding in the first smilehere it does thanks to the overload of traumas to express, new contexts to do so and, above all, a welcome meanness on Finn’s part. To summarize, Smile 2 has a lot more fun torturing the protagonist than the previous film did. There is a ruthless, almost punitive tone in the development of the plot.
This is evident both in a gore more generous—there are times when they jump flashbacks with the sole reason of showing someone dismembered—, as in the repeated custom of the demon “tricking” the singer into thinking that she has achieved emotional catharsis that is ultimately non-existent. The latter is a custom that may lengthen the film excessively, but it encourages enjoying it in a nihilistic party mood on par with the less self-conscious B-series proposals. Since Finn’s direction is also somewhat more refined – Aster’s style or the elongated shadow of “elevated terror” are diluted in an organic style, aware of its own needs -, Smile 2 is satisfactory. Even revealing, in its lack of aspirations.
By limiting oneself to passing through the phenomenon of pop stars to extract the motives and elements most related to their terrifying interests, Smile 2 dizzyingly internalizes a series of problematic issues that other films would have stressed to the point of exhaustion to gain a cultural legitimacy that Finn readily ignores. It is perceived very well in its hilarious closing scene. There Smile 2 refers to a close premiere like The substance —fully legitimized since the Cannes Festival— to, instead of wanting to preach to anyone, splash with blood and joy in the abyss of our time. Ensuring that, without prejudice of any kind, we return the smile.
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