The biggest hurdle in Suburban Ennui movies is feeling anything for the protagonist's cushy dilemma, and Silverman, as Laney, aces the role almost within the film's first five minutes. Screw the house, the stable husband (Josh Charles) and her comfortable existence. What Laney wants she won't let herself have even though she wants it with a cringing, painful desperation.
Paige Dylan and Amy Koppelman's script, based on Koppelman's novel, is structured in a very effective way, juxtaposing Laney's compulsive, destructive behavior (she drinks, she snorts, she pops pills, she has reckless unprotected sex) with flashbacks that yield more than enough clues to the source of her unhappiness.
It's not an operatic descent into hell, but a realistically quiet one. Silverman expertly masks her self-entrapment with a slick façade of perfection only to let it crumble quickly in bursts of smudgy, nasty rage. It's difficult not to overstate the virtuosity of her acting in that there's so much to it, so much that It tells us that even her character is probably not yet aware of. It's a fascinating performance and her best yet.
Koppelman and Dylan's script doesn't let her or us off the hook --- ever --- and that may be hard for some people to take. This isn't a film with a neat, clean ending, but after you've seen I Smile Back, you'd be hard pressed to imagine one.
Paige Dylan and Amy Koppelman's script, based on Koppelman's novel, is structured in a very effective way, juxtaposing Laney's compulsive, destructive behavior (she drinks, she snorts, she pops pills, she has reckless unprotected sex) with flashbacks that yield more than enough clues to the source of her unhappiness.
It's not an operatic descent into hell, but a realistically quiet one. Silverman expertly masks her self-entrapment with a slick façade of perfection only to let it crumble quickly in bursts of smudgy, nasty rage. It's difficult not to overstate the virtuosity of her acting in that there's so much to it, so much that It tells us that even her character is probably not yet aware of. It's a fascinating performance and her best yet.
Koppelman and Dylan's script doesn't let her or us off the hook --- ever --- and that may be hard for some people to take. This isn't a film with a neat, clean ending, but after you've seen I Smile Back, you'd be hard pressed to imagine one.