Movie Review: Smile

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Next year marks the incredible 50-year anniversary of the release of the movie “The Exorcist”. The Exorcist is arguably the most shocking and frightening movie ever made, and has never been surpassed.

Since the release of The Exorcist there have been countless lists of copy-cat-exorcist-like movies that have come out trying and failing to achieve the extreme levels of fright that the original achieved so long ago. Many of these movies use shocking horror movie trickery that includes a sudden horrific event. Dream sequences that make you believe that something is happening that is not really happening, easily the most annoying of all the horror movie tricks. This kind of movie magic was never necessary for the Exorcist because the quality of the horror was always there, requiring nothing additional to scare the audience.

The latest attempt at a shocking horror film is “Smile”, which is a film where a psychiatrist, Rose Cotter, played by Sosie Bacon (the daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick) is horrified when one of her patients commits suicide right in front of her, in a very disturbing way. The story after this horrible event is that there is some evil creature possessing other people to kill themselves while someone else witnesses the suicide – then causing a connecting chain of suicides that goes on for an unknown number of victims. The common thread throughout all of these suicides is that when the person is possessed, they get a huge evil smile on their face – the reason for the title of the film. Of course, this entire premise is rather ridiculous, but most horror movies are ridiculous for any number of reasons, this one being no different.

Overall, I thought this story was well told, despite the “too many shocking dream sequences or shocking sudden horror moments”. The smile idea did work and did add a certain amount of subtle horror that was mostly effective. The acting, even considering this is a horror movie, was well done. Despite the high 83% ratings for Smile on Rotten Tomatoes, my rating is 75% and a mild recommendation, mainly for the original smile idea and the good acting.

Movie Review: The Good House

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If any movie about alcoholism is ever going to have any chance of being a quality production, then the story should show the problem of heavy drinking in its full form, but then also show why the person is an alcoholic.

The new movie “The Good House” starring Sigourney Weaver , a local real estate agent, and Kevin Kline as Frank Getchel a local owner of a construction company, define both of these important aspects of alcoholism very well. This solidly constructed screenplay includes a very well-told story about a once very successful real estate agent, Hindy Good on the coast of Massachusetts, who is showing many common ravages of real life. Her business is failing, her husband divorced her because he discovered he is gay after 22 years of marriage, and she is running out of money in her 70s. Other pressures include what people in her small town are saying about her and think about her – that for many people is the most important thing in their lives – their reputation. All of this causes Hindy to drink constantly, to the point where her family and friends conduct an intervention to get her to go to rehab. For a time it appears that Hindy has defeated the problem, and then, like so many, she falls off the wagon and drinks again. She even drinks and drives risking her own life and the lives of others.

There are other very interesting side stories in this drama, including her former friend trying to steal her real estate clients from her. Her assistant is a disaster that she is too kind to fire and a close friend of hers is having an affair with another married man. Ultimately this leads to a satisfying story for the whole 2 hours and a very well constructed ending. This movie also has the highly unusual idea of having the main character narrate part of the movie while looking directly into the camera – that has both good and bad aspects.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this film are a solid 78%, with my rating about 85% and a strong recommendation for the story and the acting of both Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline.

Movie Review: Don’t Worry Darling

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The new movie “Don’t Worry Darling” directed by Olivia Wilde has more to do with the marketing power of the Rotten Tomatoes Web Site than the story within this film. Over the years, Rotten Tomatoes has become so powerful, that its ratings can completely make or break the box office of any movie even before it is released. This is the case of Don’t Worry Darling which is nothing more than a combination clone of both “The Stepford Wives” and “The Matrix”. Unfortunately, originality does not come from combining two other ideas that are original and then expecting anyone will think that a “combination of 2 great story ideas” will also be considered original. In my experience, most audiences do not like any movie or TV show that they view as a rip-off. Originality and quality are what sell, not playing the odds of trying to capitalize on something that worked in the past.

Considering the money and time involved to produce a movie like Don’t Worry Darling – what happened with this film is that the producers knew that the critics on Rotten Tomatoes would be giving this movie a low 38% rating long before it was released, so the producers decided to put out manufactured news stories to try and save the box office. These stories included having one of the lead actors Harry Styles, supposedly spitting on Chris Pine. Other stories circulated about Olivia Wilde’s firing of Shia LaBeouf, who was originally hired for the Harry Styles role. There were other stories about conflicts between the director Olivia Wilde and Florence Pugh. We have seen this before, when producers are so desperate to save a movie that they insert last-minute nude scenes or create major news stories to save the box office of a newly released movie – mostly because of the low Rotten Tomatoes ratings. This also happened with Sylvestor Stallone’s recent movie on Amazon Prime, “Samaritan” which was released days after the announcement that Stallone would be getting a divorce from his wife Jennifer Flavin after 25 years. Some days ago, it looks like Stallone and Flavin may have reconciled. The problem with this strategy is that the public knows that this is a marketing ploy to get people to pay for a new movie that might not be any good.

Remarkably, this film is almost entirely told from the perspective of Alice Chambers, played by Florence Pugh. All of the other actors in this production have very small parts compared to Pugh, which I thought was a flaw in the overall screenplay. The problem with the convoluted concept of this story is that the ultimate payoff takes too long to be fully revealed and when it is fully revealed, some of the previous scenes in some cases do not hold water. The positive aspects are that Florence Pugh (despite her extremely unfortunate last name) is a big-time upcoming new star, who is a strong enough presence to carry this entire movie – despite its obvious flaws. She has an almost perfect movie star face, that deserves a better screenplay than this one. Other stars including Chris Pine and Harry Styles hold their own despite their relatively small presence within this story.

I agree with the low scores of 38% on Rotten Tomatoes and do not recommend this film.