 |
| Images courtesy of First Look International |
Three years after delivering debatably his heaviest and most
critically acclaimed film in 2004 with the child abuse drama Mysterious Skin,
writer-director Gregg Araki sought to upend expectations once again with a
complete tonal reversal in his next project: the bright and bouncy
American-German produced stoner comedy Smiley Face. Having taken audiences on dark, distinctly
homoerotic thrill rides with The Living End, Totally Fucked Up and
The Doom Generation, the gay Japanese-American provocateur decided it
was time to do something a little more candy colored. Though considerably less abrasive, punkish or
in your face than his preexisting oeuvre, earning a comfortable commercially
viable R rating against his usual NC-17 fare, the gonzo yet painterly ensemble indie
screwball comedy chronicling the episodic misadventures of a habitual marijuana
user is unmistakably an Araki joint replete with his fantastical visual style
and frequent needle drops.
Aimless LA apartment pothead Jane F (Anna Faris in a career best performance) whiles away her time getting stoned when one morning starved with the munchies discovers a plate full of cupcakes which she naturally scarfs down on sight. Unbeknownst to her, the cupcakes were laced with cannabis and her itinerary for the day including but not limited to paying the electric bill and going to an important audition is further derailed. Worse still, her clouded judgment and desire for more weed causes her to unthinkingly use her creepy roommate Steve’s (Danny Masterson) rent money to buy more pot from a dealer she’s already indebted to. Her situation seems dire but a glimmer of hope arrives with her roommate’s dorky friend Brevin (John Krasinksi) who is infatuated with her. Can she get it together enough to work out a deal that will make everyone happy or just make another mistake while being high on pot?
Though star studded including but not limited to Adam Brody, Jane Lynch, Rick Hoffman, John Cho, Carrot Top and even Danny Trejo, Araki’s cheerful comedy of stoner shenanigans penned by Dylan Haggerty functions as a comedic riff on Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend where things go from bad to worse for Anna Faris’ character but we still sort of smirk about it. In a deliberate effort to distance himself from the darkness of his previous film, Araki and his cinematographer Shawn Kim aim for bright and colorful visuals reminiscent of the work of Todd Solondz though with a considerably less acerbic underpinning. Araki can be just as harsh as Solondz but here he gives us something a little more easy going and broadly appealing.
One should talk about the soundtrack for the film with its television romcom score by Surf Ninjas and Look Who’s Talking composer David Kitay who, in his first collaboration with Araki, provides the much needed upbeat and joyful electronic soundtrack that punctuates the film’s comic rhythms. Then there’s the film’s animated title sequence set to The Chemical Brothers’ Surface to Air, setting the mid-2000s tone of the piece. Interspersed throughout are tracks by Talking Heads, Scissor Sisters, Styx, A Flock of Seagulls and REO Speedwagon, forming a cacophony of tracks which like Araki’s other works speaks to the director’s keen musical vocabulary. For how low he made you feel with Mysterious Skin, in stark contrast Smiley Face is a big happy rainbow.
While an ensemble piece with many characters, this is primarily shouldered fully by Anna Faris who completely gives herself head over heels into a comedic performance that arguably betters her work on Scary Movie as well as her memorable turns in both May and Lost in Translation. Though not the most difficult role to play being blood red half-eyed and stunted in her movement and ability to speak sentences, Faris brings such a screwball energy to her performance as a hapless stoner hitting rock bottom from overindulgence. Araki’s technical filmmaking is great but make no mistake this is Faris’ show and fans of the actress will have a lot of fun going with her on her drugged-up misadventures.
As with Araki’s prior pictures, the lean mean indie Smiley Face floated away past the radars of many arthouse filmgoers or Cheech and Chong fans before languishing on the shelves of Blockbuster Video as an exclusive DVD release. Despite the paltry commercial reception, the film did enjoy enthusiastically warm critical praise, far different from Araki’s The Doom Generation which is still hated by some. Intended to be the polar opposite of Mysterious Skin while also proving the idiosyncratic unapologetically flamboyantly gay filmmaker could also deliver a standard broadly appealing commercial comedy, Smiley Face while clearly a lark for the director is nevertheless something of a star maker for its leading actress in one of the great underrated comic performances.
--Andrew Kotwicki