"Smile" is an independent film from 2005 about an American girl and a Chinese girl born on the same day. Kate (Mika Boorem) lives the good life as a typical Southern California good-lookin' blond whereas Lin (Yi Ding) was discarded like trash as an infant by her parents because of a facial deformity. Thankfully, a man rescues the girl and sacrifices all to see to it that she has a quality life (Luoyong Wang). The two girls meet when Kate decides to take part in a program encouraged by her teacher Mr. Matthews (Sean Astin). The story's a cumulative creation based on thousands of true stories, including one of an American teen and Chinese teen. A picture of the two is featured at the end.
The cinematography, locations, score/soundtrack, etc. are professional-level filmmaking and there are a few big names in the cast, like Linda Hamilton and Beau Bridges as Kate's parents, not to mention Astin. Although this is one of those tear-jerking inspirational dramas, it's also a coming-of-age flick. To be expected, the story goes back-and-forth between Kate and Lin. The latter's life is quite sad, except for her adoptive father, while the former's life plays out like the usual teenage-babe-in-high-school yarn. I don't mean that in a bad way because Kate's (melo)drama helps hook the viewer into the story and is one of the film's strengths. Another positive is that the filmmakers don't try to play your heart-strings too early. The whole story is a build-up to the revelation at the end and, I have to confess, it brought tears to both my wife and me.
Unfortunately, you can tell that this is a low-budget movie in regards to the weak acting in several scenes. When a movie has the funds the filmmakers will take several shots of the same scene until they get it just right; and they'll kick axx if they have to in order to get the best out of the actors. Here you can tell that they set up scenes and shot them very quickly with the attitude of "That's good enough." Why? Because time is money and they didn't have the money to take all day to shoot one or two scenes, so they got the best they could on their limited budget. Another negative is that the story is too by-the-numbers. You're watching a scene and it feels like actors following the contrived words of a script rather than what they would do or say in real life, which ruins the movie's illusion of reality. If you can ignore these flaws, however, this is a worthwhile inspirational drama. Being shot in China, it gives Westerners a good spotlight into the lives of common people in that country.
The film runs 107 minutes and was shot in Malibu, California, and Jingxi & Shanghai, China.
GRADE: B-
