Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Parker Finn, ‘Smile 2‘ returns to the world introduced in ‘Smile,’ where a mysterious supernatural entity passes through one person to another, overwhelming them with visions of smiling people before driving them to suicide. While the first film ends with Rose Cotter burning herself to death in front of her ex-boyfriend, Joel, and continuing the chain, the sequel turns towards Skye Riley. A pop star on her way to a mega comeback, Skye just so happens to watch an old friend of hers die by suicide. As the Smile Entity latches on to her and spews a strangely surreal series of hallucinations, we learn that Skye isn’t without some skeletons in the closet either. By the end of this supernatural horror movie, she goes as far as to gamble with her own life, all in the hope of defeating this demonic entity for good. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Smile 2 Plot Synopsis
‘Smile 2’ begins six days after the death of Rose Cotter, the protagonist of the first film, and it’s now Joel’s turn to feel the brunt of the curse. Desperate to put an end to the cycle, he hopes to pass on the curse by killing a criminal in front of another. However, when the shootout goes wrong, and both criminals die, Lewis Fregoli, a drug dealer he hadn’t noticed, becomes the new host. Things don’t end well for Joel either, as in his attempt to escape from other people in the gang, he gets hit by a truck and dies. The story then shifts to Skye Riley, a New York pop star who went on a hiatus to deal with some personal problems, mainly her substance abuse, and the death of her partner, Paul Hudson. At a talk show, she announces her official comeback with a tour, but behind the scenes, getting back into the zone proves to be difficult.
One day, Skye finds herself sneaking out to get drugs from her contact, who just so happens to be Lewis Fregoli. From the moment she arrives at his house, it is clear that he is in the final stages of the curse, and sure enough, he ends up killing himself right in front of her, with a smile plastered over his face. Despite being shaken up, Skye realizes that calling the police might put an unwanted spotlight on her, and quietly escapes. However, the effects of the curse soon begin to catch up to her, resulting in a stream of hallucinatory sequences featuring Lewis, Paul, and eventually, several other unnamed people, all of whom seem to be former victims of the curse. Desperate for help, she reconnects with her estranged friend Gemma before receiving a message from an unknown number claiming to know what happened at Lewis’ apartment.
The sender, as it turns out, is an ER nurse named Morris, who claims to know about the Smile Entity and how it can be beaten. Meeting with Skye in secret, he reveals that his brother was a victim of the curse, and since then, he has followed the chain obsessively. As for the way to beat it, he suggests temporarily stopping Skye’s heart to give the illusion of death, before reviving her. Hearing how risky this can be, she refuses and leaves, only to be hit by an even stronger and stranger series of hallucinations that include the killing of her mother, an encounter with cops, and a violent attack by one of her backup dancers. Feeling helpless, she contacts Morris and decides to go through with the experiment, only for the Smile Entity to come out, claiming she has no control over this story, and the whole sequence is revealed to be a hallucination.
Smile 2 Ending: Does Skye Live or Die? Is Everyone Cursed Now?
‘Smile 2’ ends with Skye taking her own life onstage, in front of thousands of spectators who are now most likely cursed by the Smile Entity. Though the film consistently blurs between the real and the imaginary, this sequence falls firmly in the former camp, with the characteristic rictus smile appearing on Skye’s face right before she kills herself. The scene right before it gives us our second glimpse of the entity’s true form, and while we see it enter Skye’s mouth, the show’s spectators see her convulsing in a trance-like state. The bigger reveal here, though, is that the curse has expanded in scope by more than a thousand-fold, and the entire audience will likely be forced into that week-long horror cycle that culminates in their death.
While it’s unlikely that the Smile Entity planned this ending before locking in on Skye as its target, her final act ends up playing with our expectations about the curse’s rule. At no point is it mentioned that the curse can only be transmitted to one person at a time; in fact, the opening scene shows Joel infecting two people at once. The final scene builds up on that detail, but from here on out, the future of the story can be hard to predict. If the curse does end up killing thousands of people roughly around the same time, the pattern would simply get too large to ignore. Almost all of them are also bound to die by infecting more people, and the result might just be a demonic pandemic. This effectively shifts the entire genre of the story, but in doing so, it does seem to be making a bigger point.
What the Smile Entity represents isn’t necessarily just the guilt or traumatic experiences of its hosts, but rather, the decisions they make after being possessed. In both ‘Smile 1’ and ‘Smile 2,’ the main characters try to beat the entity by isolating themselves or bending the rules to an extent. While this turns out to be futile, the larger symbolism might lie in how this aligns with people’s response to trauma. Isolating oneself or attempting self-destructive maneuvers to escape trauma, here represented by the monster, is proven to be a failed strategy. Though the endpoint of this ritual may be the extension of the curse to another person, somewhere between these two extremes might lie the correct way to seek help from others, or, in terms of the Smile Entity’s curse, giving up control.
Is Gemma Real? Did Skye Really Meet Morris?
While ‘Smile 2’ seemingly confirms that the Gemma we see in the car sequence isn’t real, there are also implications that Skye’s best friend was never in the story to begin with. The Gemma we have been seeing from the start of the movie is merely a construct created by the Smile Entity to psychologically torment Skye. The signs can be seen from her very first appearance, as in the very next scene, Skye seems to have no recollection of inviting Gemma to her home. The phone call before was most likely one of her many hallucinations, meant to trick the audience. From there, we get many instances subtly hinting at Gemma being imaginary, be it the fact that Skye’s mother never acknowledges her, or when Gemma’s coffee mug in the cafe is left upside down, as if there’s no one there.
The fact that Gemma is never introduced in the movie effectively means that the Smile Entity created a copy of her purely from Skye’s memory. As we know from the events of the first film, these constructs are often a far cry from their real counterparts, but mostly serve to confront the protagonist about their dark secrets. In Skye’s case, it is the fact that she never truly apologizes for her toxic behavior with Gemma, despite her entire comeback being framed around fixing the wrongs of the past. Throughout the film, Skye forces this faux version of Gemma to do unreasonable things for her, as in these moments, she thinks of Gemma as less of a friend and more of an accessory. Fittingly, the final reveal flips this dynamic, allowing the entity, as Gemma, to gain the upper hand. In retrospect, this reveal also suggests that all the moments and people that Skye previously interpreted as part of a dream might be the Smile Entity’s actual doing.
Unlike Gemma, Morris’ presence in the story appears to be a blend of reality and hallucinations. Though he is indeed the person who texts Skye about her condition and arranges a meeting, from that point on, all further appearances of the character come entirely from Skye’s mind. This also means that we never actually get to test out Morris’ theory about triggering a near-death experience to kill the entity, nor is it ever confirmed whether the entity is an actual parasite, as per his theory. The larger message here, then, is about giving Skye the illusion of control, only to snatch it back in ways that the Smile Entity mocks with its smile. Morris might still be out there, but given that the number of the cursed is likely in the tens of thousands, his discreet research wouldn’t be of much help.
Why Did Skye Kill Paul?
A flashback to the death of Paul Hudson reveals that Skye was the one who intentionally veered the car off a cliff, as an impulsive retaliation to Paul calling her mad. Skye’s defensiveness about her own psychological stability is a plot point throughout the film, and it is only here that we learn about how aggressive she can truly be about the subject. While she crashes the car based on a split-second impulse, the implications hit her soon enough when she wakes up, injured and upside down. Though she screams at the sight of Paul’s dead body, her reaction can be interpreted as being less about her partner’s death and more about how this might affect her life. The fact that she covers up the entire truth confirms where her priorities lie, to the point that she weaponizes Paul’s history with self-harm to her own advantage.
The truth about Paul’s death completely reframes our perspective on Skye, further indicating that the Entity preys on characters who have a hidden, darker side to their minds. It is no coincidence that, in the scene where Gemma is revealed to be the Smile Entity, the car’s background shifts to the night of the accident, as that is the moment Skye has been trying to bury this entire time. It also recontextualizes her speech at the TV show, where she describes her attempts to mask her trauma, and contrasts it with her decision to take that mask off. In reality, that mask never really went away, as she still refuses to own up to what happened on that fateful night. Ultimately, it’s the Smile Entity who wins over consciousness, triggering a chain reaction that is soon to bring the inner darkness of many others to the surface.
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