I Smile Back is, according to the goals it set itself, a successful movie. But is that the same as being a good one?

| Jan 11, 2021

Although the script by Amy Koppelman and Paige Dylan falters in its bizarre, grotesque depiction of suburban housewives, Silverman's transformation is mesmerizing.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 16, 2019

In the case of I Smile Back, there is no insight, just the endurance contest of watching a woman with mental illness and addiction.

| Jul 2, 2019

The film's focus on the struggle to break the cycle of addiction feels refreshing in its frankness, but Salky's direction and the script fall into a rather simplistic, familiar depiction of addiction that feels more at home in a 온라인카지노추천 movie.

| May 31, 2019

The story purposefully holds back all but a few bite-sized details about Laney's sordid past (parental abandonment is a prime factor), but it's hard to guess what the filmmakers' intent was.

| Original Score: 3.5/10 | Feb 27, 2019

This (and the disappointingly overlooked Take This Waltz from 2012) is just the beginnings of an outstanding venture into raw, mature drama for Sarah Silverman.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 3, 2017

Film is a storytelling medium, and while a story doesn't necessarily have to have a three act structure, it does need a beginning, a middle, and an end. I Smile Back is all middle.

| Oct 14, 2017

... the ending is one of those conclusions of a film that you see coming a few minutes before it does yet you pray it actually doesn't end that way because you know you'd feel like throwing your shoe at the screen.

| Original Score: D | Sep 1, 2017

That Laney is an unlikeable lone wolf is not necessarily a problem... But her inability to connect becomes our problem, as the film itself lacks any connective tissue. Even Adam Salky's direction feels dissociative.

| Jul 28, 2017

I Smile Back might not rewrite the addiction or mental illness melodrama rule book but that doesn't make it less affecting, Silverman's spectacular performance alone making the price of a ticket well worth spending.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 22, 2016

Silverman is excellent, but she could use a better script.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 15, 2016

'I Smile Back' could very well be just another addiction drama, were it not for the power and force of Silverman's performance, which she plays with such raw openness that she transcends the material.

| May 30, 2016

At a running time of 85 minutes, we learn too little about Laney and too much about her addiction.

| Original Score: C+ | Feb 24, 2016

It would be nice if this film offered more hope for Laney, but it isn't that kind of film. It is just a slice of life, and a pretty depressing slice at that, with a disturbing beginning, a dismal end and false hope in the middle.

| Original Score: C | Jan 21, 2016

The sort of reductionism one finds in cautionary videos made for schools, with equally weak logic.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Dec 17, 2015

Silverman delivers a knockout performance - any memories of her scatalogical stand-up act are washed away in an instant. But her intense commitment to the depths of depression belongs in a better, more focused, less derivative film.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 4, 2015

I Smile Back isn't a candy-coated, noble depiction of addiction and the toll it takes on families, but rather a bleak yet honest look at how regular people lose themselves, and how difficult it can be to find the way back.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 3, 2015

It is a brave performance by Sarah Silverman as a woman slipping into a private hell of her own making, but - well, that probably says enough.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 3, 2015

I Smile Back pummels with nastiness, then moves from one shocking event to the next without a backward glance.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 3, 2015

A terrible script by Paige Dylan takes all the fun out of stand-up comedian Sarah Silverman playing a serious part as a depressed addict.

| Original Score: C | Nov 30, 2015