Gray skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face

On what scares me about Smile

Cross-posted to Kill by Kill’s Substack. Content warning for discussion of suicide.

The timing of this article (to coincide with a Kill by Kill episode on the surprise hit Smile) is interesting, because December 7th marks 24 years since I attempted suicide. I don’t talk much about the other two times I tried, once shortly before and once long after, because I stopped myself before things went too far. That time on December 7th, though, if my then-husband hadn’t found me, I probably would have succeeded. So it’s oddly appropriate to be talking about a horror movie with a monster that relentlessly torments its victims until they’re forced to kill themselves, passing their misery on to someone else.

I don’t know that Smile would have worked as well for me if it wasn’t for the empathy of its plot. It could have easily taken the lurid route, focusing more on gruesome death scenes while spending approximately eight seconds to develop the characters. Instead, its strength lies in its protagonist, Rose (Sosie Bacon), and a sensitive take on depression and mental illness that will feel all too familiar to some viewers.

For me, the most unsettling scene in Smile doesn’t involve gore, or the J-horror monster who shows up in the third act. It’s a child’s birthday party, in which Rose, already slowly unraveling, is trying hard to maintain a sense of normalcy. Badgered into attending the party by her sister (we’ll get to her in a minute), Rose is physically present, but her mind is somewhere else, the sound of voices singing “Happy Birthday” far away and distorted.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been at some event, because not going wasn’t an option (it never is, to paraphrase Steve Martin in Parenthood our whole lives are “supposed to”), but completely checked out, to the point where everyone around me sounds like distant signals through static. It bleeds over into other parts of my life. My job becomes impossible to do, I lose interest in my hobbies, and what’s normally fun feels like a burdensome chore. It’s not boredom, but a sort of emptiness, an inability to connect with and be present in the world.

There’s an uncomfortable familiarity in the quick, empty smiles Rose gives everyone around her, in an effort to look normal. Because that’s all it takes to reassure people that you’re not about to hurt yourself or do something crazy, just give ‘em a little smile, even if it doesn’t meet your eyes. Sometimes people will demand that you smile, as if the mere act of doing so will suddenly flood your brain with some much-needed serotonin. Supposedly science has proven this actually happens, but I’ve yet to experience it.

Rose seems to be well-versed in faking normal for the benefit of others. Her sister has little patience for her emotional needs, while her boyfriend at first minimizes them, then also quickly becomes exasperated. Rather than try to help her, or just even show the slightest bit of compassion, they shut her down and demand that she pull herself together. Later, her boyfriend angrily tells her that he looked up whether or not her mental illness is hereditary, “just so I know what I’m getting into.” It’s a breathtakingly cruel moment, and yet Rose doesn’t protest or defend herself. No, she apologizes, as if there’s a way she could better handle the feeling that she’s losing her mind without bothering or inconveniencing the people in her life who are supposed to care about her. It’s uncomfortably familiar.

The affliction, if you will, in Smile is passed along by forcing someone to witness a suicide. I had no such desire to traumatize anyone (in fact, my last attempt, some years ago, was several hundred miles away from home, in a hotel room), but it does happen. Some people who commit suicide are so filled with rage that they want to make their final exit unforgettable – this is how you end up with people throwing themselves in front of subway trains, or committing “suicide by cop.” They hurt so much that it’s not enough to slam a door shut, but they have to catch someone’s fingers in it. 

When I was a child, maybe 10 or 11 years old, my mother went through a phase of announcing that she was going to commit suicide, then locking herself in the bathroom and refusing to come out. This probably happened maybe half a dozen times in a three-month period, and at first, my father reacted to it as any normal person would, by attempting to break the door down, while my mother cried and screamed and insisted she was going to do it, and he couldn’t stop her. The second time, my father was less concerned and more angry, calling her bluff and insisting that she wouldn’t do it.

After that, it became a joke to him. “Oh, here she goes again,” he’d announce, like she burned the roast for the second time that week. They’d go back and forth through the bathroom door, while I’d hide in my bedroom, angry at the both of them, but also terrified that this time, maybe, she’d mean it. Some forty years later, I haven’t forgotten that stomach-churning fear. Maybe it’d be fair to say I was traumatized by it, though “trauma” is so casually thrown about these days that I’m averse to using it. But it has made me self-aware to the point of overcorrecting: I apologize when I need someone to talk to. I go out of my way to not let anyone down, even if there are days when I can barely get out of bed. And I always, always remember to smile. 

I wish I knew what my mother was thinking, and what she had hoped to accomplish. I don’t know that “getting attention” explains it – she had our attention, and the attention of her parents, all the time. Even in my worst moments, my thoughts were first and foremost to not make anyone hurt over my actions. But it’s a powerful concept. I think part of it is what drives, in a more primal way, the monster in Smile: a need – no, a demand – to be seen, for someone to witness pain in as simple and plain a manner as possible, without the theater of apologizing, of putting on a good face and going through the motions, and whatever other bullshit depressed people hear. It’s the mask removed, and no one can look away. They won’t forget how much we hurt. We’ll make it so they don’t.