*NOTE: This movie deals with sensitive topics such as suicide, PTSD, and psychosis

Telling the story of Dr. Rose Cotter, a psychiatrist who witnessed a very traumatic event involving one of her own patients, “Smile” captures the suspense, fear, and terror that comes with trauma.

This movie starts off with Dr. Rose Cotter, a psychiatrist, having a session with a new patient who had just witnessed a traumatic event. While Cotter tries to talk to her patient, her patient starts screaming about how she sees something that Cotter or anyone else cannot see. Her patient ends up breaking a glass flower vase by accident while falling to the ground, and picking up one of the shards while creepily smiling. To set the stage for the plot of the movie, her patient cuts a smile through her own cheek down through her throat. Cotter witnesses this whole suicide happen in front of her, which makes her spiral through out the entirety of the movie. Cotter starts to hallucinate things such as her patient who took her life and her own mother, who also coincidentally took her own life in front of Cotter when she was younger.

“Smile”, in my own opinion, had a very interesting plot. While Cotter tries to figure out what her patient saw the day she killed herself in front of her, she has to also figure out why she is hallucinating and how to get rid of it. This movie kept me on the edge of my seat, which I like when it comes to movies. I personally would not consider this movie horror, but more of a suspenseful genre. The horror aspect of it mostly just relied on some jumpscares here and there, but the suspense throughout the movie itself was thrilling. However, since it was played up to be scary and intense, I was sort of disappointed after watching since it was more suspenseful than anything. I was still scared since I didn’t know what to expect. However, after watching and looking back on it, there were only a few jumpscares that really got me. There were a lot of opportunities for good jumpscares, but most of the time I was just left waiting for one, rather than one actually happening. Although, this does really add to the suspenseful feeling throughout the movie.

With a score of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, “Smile” has done very well at the box office, recently topping the $200 million mark worldwide. If I had the chance to go and see it again, even though I know what happens in the end, I would, just to experience the suspenseful feeling I felt once again.