Review of Smiley Face (2007) by Mike M — 10 Oct 2009

Indie director Gregg Araki takes a break from his usually dark, edgy films (The Doomed Generation, Nowhere) to direct a full-fledged stoner comedy, though somehow, Araki still managed to instill some dark and edgy moments, though they can seem somewhat muddled in this rather silly departure for him.

Smiley Face focuses on lazy stoner chick Jane (Anna Faris, whose actually quite funny in this) who gets stoned early in the morning and, like all stoners, gets the serious munchies and decides to eat her nerdy (but scary) roommate's (Danny Masterson) cupcakes, which are actually laced with a massive amount of pot as well.

Soon, Jane becomes stoned beyond comprehension and plays the rest of the movie as though she were borderline retarded, as she attempts to run many errands, which consist of getting money for her dealer, doing an audition, baking more cupcakes, going to the dentist with a friend, etc, but only gradually making her situation worse and worse by the minute, leading to a very practical and realistic (though some would say anti-climatic) ending.

A lot of the comedy within the film is hit or miss. Farris is actually pretty darn funny, and the movie is lucky enough to have other decent sized names in it, unfortunately some either offer a lot to the film (like The Office's John Krasinski), while others are somewhat wasted (like Jane Lynch or Danny Trejo).

There's also some funny narration from Roscoe Lee Browne. Overall, the movie was a decent way to kill time. Not bad.