Post by StevePulaski on May 30, 2016 0:53:46 GMT -5
I Smile Back (2015)
Directed by: Adam Salky
Directed by: Adam Salky
Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back.
Rating: ★★★
Adam Salky's I Smile Back is more geared towards mystifying rather than sentimentalizing or explicitly detailing the experiences of a depressed suburban housewife, who is stuck in a funk I fear many suburban mothers are. They are at a crossroads when their children start getting to ages six or seven when many of them don't necessarily always want to be in the company of their parents as much anymore and have other responsibilities like friends, play-dates, and recess to attend to. While this is an instrumental and often formative moment in the lives of many young children, if a parent has become so invested in their child that they have sacrificed their life for them and aren't braced for this period, it could lead to a downward spiral that's extremely difficult to reverse.
While that specific instance isn't directly mentioned in I Smile Back and screenwriters Paige Dylan and Amy Koppelman (who penned the book of the same name) might not have even implied that, I only mention that scenario because I find it very probable in this situation. In addition, I Smile Back doesn't give you a ton of detail to work on; it's a very regimented film, almost structured in vignette-style, where sometimes there's an explicit takeaway such as a key theme or emotion in a particular scene and sometimes the next one isn't as clear. Salky, Dylan, and Koppelman successfully find a middle-ground on which to function.
The film revolves around Laney (Sarah Silverman), a woman with two great children and a wonderful husband named Bruce (Josh Charles), who seems like the most perfect and understanding man for any situation. The four live very nicely in a middle-class home without any sort of issues rising high enough above the surface for the neighbor to begin turning heads, but for months now, Laney has felt weighed down by depression from a number of things. Part of it may be her children. Part of it may be her personal childhood being less than perfect. Part of it may be a disillusionment with her current position in life. Part of it may be that she has no sort of stability and her children occasionally show signs of early independence which leave her role as a mother particularly gray.
We never really know and the mystery keeps us watching. We see Laney basically wander through her day, often looking confused or quietly troubled. Her disengagement with the world around her shows when she seems completely lost when dropping her children off at school, and her solace one evening is drinking copious amounts of vodka and calling her son's friend's parents in the middle of the night to scold her for teaching her own children the rougher, unromanticized version of American history.
Again, what fuels these bouts of rage, binge-drinking, and "storm-cloud" depression episodes is unknown and Silverman gives a near perfect performance. In many ways, she reminds me of Paul Dano, another bold but largely unrecognized character actor. His performance in Prisoners as a slow young boy caught on the wrong side of a potential kidnapping is one of the best performances I've yet to see in the way Dano could look and act as if there was nothing occurring inside his mind. Silverman's performance carries similar weight, or lack thereof. When we see her spending her evening lying face-sideways on her mattress, doing and saying nothing, we almost get that visual representation of internal emptiness.
Silverman gives the kind of performance that's sets a high standard for this genre, and soars past Jennifer Aniston's slouchy performance as a depressed, middle-aged woman in last year's Cake. I Smile Back also soars past it in quality because this feels more like a film that's appropriate in the way it handles depression; it's quiet, thoughtful, buoyed by a strong central performance, and has a very calm, natural sadness that creeps into the room like steam from a shower underneath the crack of a closed door. Before you know it, when the ending hits, you feel as if the film has blindsided you with how sad and potentially hopeless the whole event has just become.
And then you sort of realize how Laney has felt the entire time.
Starring: Sarah Silverman, Josh Charles, and Thomas Sadoski. Directed by: Adam Salaky.