Laura Smiles (2005) User Reviews (10)

Vivid Portrayal of Manic Depression

[noralee · 6/10 · 25 May 2005]

"Laura Smiles" is an alarmingly effective portrait of a woman's mental breakdown.

We are introduced to "Laura" at her happiest time, in a warm, loving relationship with her fiancé (a very appealing Kip Pardue) in the city, literally the love of her life. In flashbacks, we then see the sweet development of this relationship out of order as these moments become brightly lit and colored memories that desperately intrude on her later in life, as she becomes consumed with guilt and remorse over his fate.

These feelings start to overwhelm her current life as a wife and mother. As something inconsequential in what she calls her "suburban drudgery" triggers the past -- in the supermarket, cooking, cleaning, at a school play-- she acts out increasingly aberrantly to counteract the feelings they generate, especially when she can no longer distinguish past from present from dreams, recalling Blanche Du Bois.

While writer/director Jason Ruscio said in Q & A at the Tribeca Film Festival that he was inspired by the break-up of his relationship with the lead actress Petra Wright, the film is the most vivid portrayal I've seen of manic depression. Whereas depression is usually portrayed in films simplistically as catatonia, as in "Off the Map," here we see her acting out, in ways that ended up losing the audience's sympathy for her. She is also set up in contrast to the men around her who are sympathetic or understandable, including Jonathan Silverman as a grief-stricken lover who can keep in touch with reality. Nor do the therapy sessions make her more sympathetic, as she lies to the shrink and then, frighteningly, the therapy doesn't even help her.

It becomes as painful for the audience as for her to recall her earlier happy life as she seems to leave the present for it, like a Jack Finney time travel story.

This is a raw, bleak "Desperate Housewives" without the humor or satire.

Laura Smiles

[lakaren225 · 6/10 · 2 May 2005]

I agree that this was not the greatest film in the Tribeca Film Festival. However, if the ending were not so outrageous and unbelievable, this could have been a great film. The lead actress, Petra, does an amazing job and is very talented. The main problem is the ending and the script needed more rewrites. The film does not hold together and there are too many ambiguities that really make no sense. I like what the film is trying to say, but the film falls flat and is actually less powerful when Laura freaks out at the end. The film was very strong before the murder and the sexual addiction aspects. I hope the lead actress wins some awards or gets some recognition for her performance, because she was fantastic.

Great plot and acting

[Gordon-11 · 11 January 2008]

This film is about a suburban housewife's marriage falling apart because of her unresolved issues in the past.

Though the film is initially slow, it gets better steadily during the course of the film. The plot is non linear, but it is easily understandable and well told. I like how events are partially presented first, and then told in more detail after other events are laid out to make more sense of the initial event. The lead character, Laura, is portrayed amazingly. Petra Wright wide range of emotions is impressive, and I am surprised that she has not made it big. If this film had big A List stars in it, I am confident it would be a hit.

a non study of mental illness

[luvbuniz · 3/10 · 27 April 2005]

I saw this at the Tribeca film festival and was unimpressed overall lack of direction of the movie. The Laura character's actions were inexplicable. Obviously she had a mental illness which may have been affected by her fiancé's tragic accident but the bizarre behavior manifests itself 8 years later when she is married to another man. The director tried to underline of ennui of suburban life as a housewife by making Laura a promiscuous, homicidal depressive with amnesia.

Laura Smiles tries to pass itself off as a 'documentary style' film but the characters and script are too undeveloped for it to resemble any real life scenario. The ending is unsatisfying and messy.

a mesmerizing glimpse into the heart of a lost soul

[Buddy-51 · 9/10 · 22 June 2008]

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 fiancé 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 and happiness in her life? As she confides to the therapist who is trying to help her, "How can everything be right, yet feel so wrong?" - a lament most of us have probably sounded at some point or other in our lives.

Whatever the cause of her dissatisfaction and angst, Laura's life has become little more than a tedious ritual of psychically enervating, soul-crushing banality. Unable to find fulfillment in her marriage, Laura turns to one-night-stands and an affair with her husband's best friend for meaning and solace. But to no avail, for nothing seems capable of filling the void that exists at the very center of her soul.

This is a beautifully made film - stark, spare, contemplative and poetic. Stripped of all slickness and theatricality, the movie really feels as if it is capturing life as we live it. Indeed, precisely because it is a bit raw and rough around the edges - Ruscio deliberately overexposes the film stock in several scenes - "Laura Smiles" draws us more deeply into the lives of the characters and the world they inhabit than if the movie had all the trappings that come with a higher budget. Ruscio has also come up with a sophisticated nonlinear narrative structure which, far from confusing us, actually helps to clarify some of the seemingly irrational and self-destructive behavior we see Laura indulging in.

Petra Wright is poignant and touching as the woman trapped in her own psychic hell, while Kip Pardue, Mark Derwin and Jonathan Silverman offer excellent support as the various men in her life.

Is it possible, Laura wonders in a moment of heartbreaking introspection, for a person to find actual fulfillment or happiness in this life - or are we all doomed to endlessly grasping for that tantalizing, ever elusive "something" that will remain forever beyond our reach? The film doesn't presume to answer that question, but it at least has the courage to ask it and, indeed, to explore it with a level of profundity and artistry to do it justice.

This is a movie that got virtually no theatrical release - playing in only one theater and grossing a measly $4,558 - before heading to video, yet it turns out to be one of the most thoughtful and moving motion pictures of 2007. And this is hardly the only independent film of recent times to suffer such a fate. Says more about American audiences and distributors than it does about the movies themselves perhaps.

intelligent, tender look at the loss of love in the suburbs

[hectorrules · 10/10 · 21 May 2005]

This is the kind of movie that you go to when you just can't bear to go to another crappy Hollywood blockbuster. I saw it at the 2005 Tribeca festival and scanned the trades until I saw the review in Variety that pays the film the tribute it deserves.

Ronnie Scheib nailed it on the head: "Sharp dialogue, idiosyncratic characters and a wickedly brilliant structure that subtly derails expectation make "Laura Smiles" a rarity among mellers. Jason Ruscio's sophomore feature traces the quietly psycho, often hilarious disintegration of an American housewife. "Laura" could become an indie "American Beauty.""

Best Scene

[SisterSarah007 · 9/10 · 30 July 2007]

In response to a previous post, this set me thinking about what it was that I liked so much about this film.

My answer - It was just the initial simplicity of it all. but then despite this the deeper/more intense the film became the more profound it truly was. I think there were a multitude of meanings behind each scene, by the way the film was shot and by the very realistic acting that took place. Each scene was completely simple, and then later elaboration would show its true depth.

My favourite scene has to be: -moments before Chris proposes to Laura. She has just created the 'perfect moment' by showing her deep-rooted and utter faith in this man. And then she goes on about eating her fries, drinking her drink and wiping her mouth. i don't know - i guess it's just that she's so oblivious of how incredible she was. a fine actress. She's this humble being who has been dealt the most maltreated card there is in life. And yet she carries on 'living' - the word being used loosely.

Keeps on Giving

[rake-15 · 9/10 · 17 August 2006]

I saw this film in Vail, (definitely a cool festival by the way) and have found myself increasingly coming back to it in my mind. Ruscio plays chronological constructs brilliantly. "Laura" was reminiscent of Cassevettes work and the great films of the 70's. Ruscio purposefully gaps in the audience's understanding which is very effective in creating tension which are satisfied in lighting bolt bursts of realization.

This is an examination of the very real trouble we can find ourselves in so swiftly as life trundles by, when we refuse to face the truth, or love ourselves at the core...even if it is just enough to see another day, or find another love.

Jonathon Silverman's portrayal of the lover who gets run over by the train of Petra Wright's (Laura) madness is nothing less than an accumulated and focused sum of the skills he had developed in "....". In my mind, he adds an incredible ground wire to the voltage Ms. Wright delivers from beginning to end.

I'd say that Laura Smiles is a definite must see.

Synopsis

[ayora_19 · 5 May 2007]

Since there was no synopsis added, I thought I'd add the following

Synopsis A woman haunted by the untimely death of her former fiancée attempts to ease her psychic suffering by marrying another man and living the idealistic suburban life in director Jason Ruscio's vivid existential drama. Laura (Petra Wright) was in her mid-twenties when her fiancée Chris (Kip Pardue) was stricken down by a taxi in the streets of Manhattan. Flash forward nine years and Laura has remarried and given birth to a child, yet the pain of her past prompts her to embark into a series of promiscuous and self-destructive extramarital affairs. Having never truly dealt with the death of Chris, Laura seeks out the aid of a therapist as the memories come flooding back accompanied by a tidal wave of grief-stricken emotion. Her mind slowly consumed by tragedy and her fragile psyche finally shattered by her failed attempts to seek solace in the comforts of her past, Laura's affair with her husband's best friend Paul finds her harrowing journey careening to a dangerous and unpredictable end. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

I'm about to go see this movie tomorrow.

portrait of a crisis

[Vincentiu · 28 January 2014]

the past as only side of reality. a woman and her need to escape far from her life. a psychiatric case. or only portrait of a crisis who is not really different by many of viewers. a film who has one ambition - to be realistic. to explore each part of a vain search of sense. to use each scene not for sympathetic verdict by for true image of fall. it is not an easy movie because reflects pieces from ordinary life. Madame Bovary, maniac-depressive, each is at right place. but scene by scene you discover common experiences of a woman who becomes part of her past. and who has not force to accept reality more than shadow of a fundamental experience. far to usual dramas, it seems be a Bergman sketch. a film not about sickness but about a crisis who defines large parts of society.