Director Gregg Araki’s lo-fi ‘Smiley Face’ remains a quirky outlier in its genre.
The Big Picture
- Long before he was a big-name writer/director with films like
IF
and
A Quiet Place
under his belt, John Krasinski stood out in
Smiley Face
, a quirky stoner-comedy from 2007. -
Smiley Face
was directed by Gregg Araki, who was more known for darker fare. - Krasinski makes for a perfect foil to Anna Faris’s lead character in this lo-fi, critically underseen film.
Despite now being an established writer-director with his new animated film IF currently in theaters, John Krasinski’s work hasn’t always been particularly serious nor child-friendly. A comedic man at heart, one of the finest examples of Krasinski’s more frivolous pieces of acting is his role as “Brevin” in Gregg Araki‘s 2007 film, Smiley Face. Smiley Face remains distinct in the stoner-comedy genre, and while it has developed something of a cult following, it never achieved the household name status that many of the other ’00s stoner comedies reached. With Krasinski currently back in the limelight and it recently being announced that Araki is set to direct his first film in 10 years, there has never been a more opportune moment to highlight this irreverent, underseen, and atypically lo-fi stoner-comedy.
Smiley Face (2007)
A comedy centered on Jane, a struggling actress who unknowingly eats cannabis-laced cupcakes and finds herself in a series of outrageous and hilarious predicaments. Her day spirals out of control as she tries to accomplish simple tasks, like paying her rent and making it to an important audition, while dealing with the effects of her unexpected high. Along the way, she interacts with an eccentric cast of characters, leading to a sequence of comical and unpredictable events.
- Release Date
- November 16, 2007
- Director
- Gregg Araki
- Cast
- Anna Faris , John Krasinski , Adam Brody , Jane Lynch , Roscoe Lee Browne
- Runtime
- 84 Minutes
- Main Genre
- Comedy
Gregg Araki Moved Away From Type with ‘Smiley Face’
Prior to Smiley Face, Araki had made waves in the ’90s as part of the New Queer Cinema movement, most notably with his so-called Teenage Apocalypse trilogy, comprised of the films Totally F***ed Up, The Doom Generation, and Nowhere. While these films made him something of a cult filmmaker, with his transgressive depictions of misspent youth and 90s malaise laying the grounds for indie filmmakers to come, it was his 2004 film Mysterious Skin that put his name into mainstream consciousness.
Mysterious Skin was a stark moment of recognition for Araki, particularly critically, making his decision to follow it up with Smiley Face all the more strange and noteworthy. A far cry from the dark and challenging subject matter that Araki previously concerned himself with, Smiley Face is rather a flippant, pseudo-Dadaist take on the stoner-comedy genre. The film revolves around Anna Faris‘s Jane as she attempts to negotiate her day after unknowingly eating (all of) her roommates’ weed cupcakes. As a consequence, the film leads us on a picaresque journey through characters and events, including one standout turn from John Krasinski.
John Krasinski Steals the Show as “Brevin”
Jane’s first port of call after her mistake is to attempt to replace the cupcakes by buying some weed from her deeply-dreadlocked dealer, Steve, played by Adam Brody. When Steve arrives and reminds her of the substantial debt that she is already in with him, she decides to desperately call people she knows in an attempt to borrow money. She quickly realizes, though, that the perfect recipient of this call would be Krasinski’s Brevin, her roommate’s ultra-nerdy friend who she knows is deeply infatuated with her. When Krasinski arrives on the screen, sporting a strikingly nerdy pair of glasses, it becomes clear that he is to be the main sideshow character of the film.
Krasinski’s downbeat, Napoleon Dynamite-infused style of acting is the perfect foil to Farris’ exuberant and unassuming Jane, providing a terrific counterbalance between the straight and down-played reality of the plot and the whimsy of the filmmaking and Jane’s character. Perhaps a perfect encapsulation of their dynamic is a moment in which Jane, in her constant state of disjointed mania, flings open and rushes out of Brevin’s parked car. The camera remains stationary as Jane rushes out of the frame to continue her mission, while Brevin slowly and intently walks round his car to check if there is any damage to his door that has just been opened into a pole. It is this comedic sensibility that renders Smiley Face a different type of stoner-comedy, one that is starkly grounded as opposed to something that utilizes the usual, far-fetched plots that became the norm for the genre.
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‘Smiley Face’ has a Lo-Fi Feel That Enhances it as a Stoner-Comedy
Smiley Face stands out among the crop of 00s stoner-comedies exactly because of its grounded plot. The film eschews any outlandish plot divergences involving gangsters, murders or complications with drug dealers. In fact, even when the film might set itself up to go exactly in that direction early on, with the arrival of Steve the drug dealer and the mention of Jane’s debt, the film almost ridicules the idea of the stakes being raised too high, with Steve’s main threat being the removal of her beloved bed if she doesn’t pay him back what she owes.
Instead, the film remains what the purest idea of a stoner-comedy might suggest, an exemplification of the humor that can be found in the idea of a stoner simply being too stoned. Jane’s main concerns and plot conflicts throughout the day are paying her bills and attending auditions, responsibilities that are completely ubiquitous and real. Rather than evolving these stakes any higher, the film almost subverts these expectations, playing with dramatic irony and allowing Jane herself to be the only one who believes, for example, that the police are conducting a drug bust on her after she attempts and fails to sell her weed to fellow actresses and the casting director (Jane Lynch) at her audition.
Jane’s persistent paranoia and manic energy throughout the film is where the humor is found, and this only works because of how it contrasts to every other character she encounters. The people she meets, including Brevin, are trusting, understanding, and helpful to her, creating a dissonance to all of her interactions that rings true whilst allowing the film to remain an understated and simply enjoyable time for its duration. With all of this uniqueness, an overriding quirky nature and a now vintage comedic performance from Krasinski, it seems only fair that Smiley Face now be given its rightful cultural reassessment.
Smiley Face is available to stream on Tubi in the U.S.
This article was originally published on collider.com