Laura Smiles

mesmerizing glimpse into the heart of a troubled soul
****1/2

*SPOILERS*

Written and directed by Jason Ruscio, the ironically titled "Laura Smiles" is a profound and provocative exploration of how we cope with tragedy and loss in our lives. As the movie opens, Laura is a 25-year-old aspiring actress who appears headed for a bright and happy future, thanks to a career that seems to be on the point of taking off and her recent engagement to a man who loves her. All that changes in an instant, however, when her fiance is run over and killed by a motorist on a busy Manhattan thoroughfare. Flash forward nine years to find Laura comfortably ensconced in a middle class suburban home with a devoted husband and a loving young son. The trouble is that Laura wanders through life like a shell-shocked zombie, emotionally cut off from the people around her. Could it be the effect of that traumatizing event in the past, or is there something deeper and more endemic to her personality that keeps Laura from finding fulfillment...

"You ever think about keeping a journal?"
I rented Laura Smiles because Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, a favorite critic of mine described it as "the movie Little Children wanted to be." Laura Smiles shares its focus with Little Children on suburban malaise, on characters who find release in an affair, who are desperate to shake the skin of civility and propriety. I think that critic was trying to say that Laura Smiles allows you to glimpse the tender, hopeful Laura (Petra Wright) who exists simultaneously, if in the past, with the Laura we see present day, married and bored in the suburbs - that where Little Children assumed a tenderness and possibility within its characters, Laura Smiles does its best to prove and make you feel like the character now is a product of her past. However, I respect Owen Gleiberman more than I respect the movie - Little Children used its suburban desperation to create something rather life affirming. Laura Smiles attempts more authenticity (although, Little Children was plenty...

Quite slight
Some nonsense about how a woman falls apart later in life after experiencing flashbacks to the death of her fiance nine years earlier. Laura goes a bit nuts, sleeps with a neighbor and the market bag boy, then comes apart in her shrink's office at the end. What is the point here? Still, there's something entertaining enough to carry this through.

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