The origins of the smile can be traced back almost 30 million years. It hasn’t always been a symbol of joy. In the realm of primitive primates, it signaled submission. Called a “fear grin,” it gave the impression that the purveyor of the expression was anodyne. Throughout the ages, humans have mastered the art of smiling. From nervous smiles to vacant ones, the smile is a part of our everyday mien.
Paramount Pictures’ Smile taps into the primal implications of the smile. As writer/director Parker Finn’s feature debut, the film has certainly scared up some smiles at the box office. Horror has been killing it at the box office this year and Parker Finn has a theory about it.
“Horror has always been popular, but it’s starting to be celebrated by the mainstream more. It’s such an interesting vehicle to explore. It’s always done a great job of holding up a mirror to society and taking a look at all of the anxieties, fears, and collective traumas that we’re all experiencing. What’s great about horror is that you can take these heavy, heady themes and motifs to explore, and you can hang them on the skeleton of genre. You can take something that might be too melodramatic or bleak on its own, but it turns into a roller coaster as horror. It’s got the present effect of making you scream but also contains something that will linger with you after the credits roll and make you think about it days after,” he said.
Parker Finn. Photo by Phillip Faraone/ Getty Images for Paramount Pictures
Laura Hasn’t Slept
Parker’s short Laura Hasn’t Slept (2020) was the genesis of Smile. His discipline and work ethic served him well in making the transition from shorts to features.
“Laura Hasn’t Slept Here is about a young woman who goes to her therapist because she has this recurring nightmare she can’t get rid of. It stars Caitlin Stasey who also plays the character Laura in Smile. This larger idea emerged from this short and I had an opportunity to pitch it around town. I was incredibly lucky that my producers at Temple Hill and Paramount really saw what the idea could be and got behind it. I sold it as a pitch and I wrote the first draft once Paramount picked it up,” Finn continued.
“I had been writing scripts and directing short films for years. I was in a very lucky position with Smile in that Laura Hasn’t Slept Here was an official selection at SXSW. It won the Special Jury Award. That got announced in the trades. There was a private Vimeo link to the film that started spreading around town very organically. My inbox exploded after that and that’s how I signed with my agent and managers. People were interested in what I wanted to do next and wanted to know if there was a feature version of that short film. I had originally made the short to exist for its own sake. It was very self-contained. While I was in post on it, something about it kept gnawing at me and an idea for a larger story emerged and that’s what became Smile,” he added.
Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) and Carl Renken (Jack Sochet) Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures
“The challenges of doing a feature are that you take all the logistical elements with a short and exponentially multiply that by a million. Luckily, I had great collaborators on this. You have to build it brick by brick. The process of making a feature film is putting out fires every single day. It becomes Murphy’s Law. You prep for all these different things, but inevitably something that you never thought of will happen and you have to figure out a way to navigate it. The pressure’s enormous while you’re in production. For me, as a director, I don’t find production to be the time where I’m looking forward to being creative. I want to have done the creative work ahead of time so I can drop in with a very strong plan and stick to it. Having such a strong plan is what allows me and my collaborators to adapt when we need to.“
Parker is a cinephile and has a catalog of knowledge about films and horror films in particular. While there are some that influenced Smile, he also believes all solid horror films have one specific throughline.
“I was thinking about a lot of stuff while I was making Smile. Rosemary’s Baby was on my mind because of the way that Mia Farrow’s character is being gaslit and told by everyone that what she’s feeling is wrong. It’s still thematically relevant… this idea of a woman being told that she’s hysterical.”
“One of my favorite films is Safe, directed by Todd Haynes. From the 90s. The way that film places you in the anxiety of Julianne Moore’s character as she’s going down that rabbit hole… you’re really with her and feeling everything that she’s feeling. I love the tone that the story sets. I also think that Todd Haynes is a master at his craft. I’m always thinking about that movie but especially when I was making Smile. I love Japanese horror but the one I was thinking about when I was making Smile was Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure. I love the nightmarish atmosphere of that film and this feeling of there being this weird chain of events that inexplicably involve some very strange deaths. I love the way that it balances this atmosphere that feels like a nightmare with the investigative angle.“
What’s Parker Finn Scared Of?
“In my own life, things that would scare me are not recognizing myself or not being able to recognize the world around me. Not being able to trust my own sense of perception is something I think is potentially frightening. Also, not being believed is a universal situation that freaks me out.”
Parker has a strong work ethic and is results driven. If given a $10 million budget to make whatever project he’d like, it would be something just left of center.
“I love making films that explore the human condition through the lens of genre and one of my favorite parts about writing is having written…! As any writer knows, the writing process can feel frustrating. You can feel like you’re getting nowhere. It can feel like you’ll never be able to put out all the fires you’ve started for yourself. The best part is when you break through some wall you’ve been up against, and stuff starts to come together, and you start to surprise yourself in your own writing. That’s really fun. My favorite part about writing is once you’re greenlit and it’s going to actually happen.”
