Smiley Face.

"Despite its laid-back script, Smiley Face is as prankishly political as [Gregg] Araki's Doom Generation, evincing a deep unease with the media-saturated capitalist nation that Jane crawls inside her bong to escape," writes Matt Zoller Seitz in the New York Times. As for Anna Faris, her "freakishly committed performance as Jane F suggests Amy Adams's princess from Enchanted dropped into a Cheech and Chong movie."

"What's going on here, I think, is mumblecore through a marijuana haze," proposes Vadim Rizov at the House Next Door. "Behind Jane's surprisingly depressing hijinks is post-grad malaise: a rare copy of the Communist Manifesto drives a lot of the plot, with Jane occasionally delivering moments of lucid intelligence to remind us that she must've learned something in college." Still, "despite the hit-and-miss jokes that keep Smiley Face consistently engaging and occasionally hilarious - it's the most depressing comedy of the year."

Updated through 12/28.

"A rambling, rudimentary, profoundly unoriginal stoner comedy, Smiley Face falls apart by its third scene, imploding not only due to a lack of solid material, but also due to the existence of another film that, three years ago, reminded us of just how good the stoner comedy can be: Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle," writes S James Snyder in the New York Sun.

The Reeler interviews Araki. And speaking of the Reeler: Stu and I have exchanged email over this, and we can't seem to figure out what's going on: Is anyone else having problems accessing the Reeler? Drop a line; it might help us figure out what the problem is. Thanks.

Earlier: Reviews from Sundance and Toronto. And Craig Phillips's notes on a Sundance roundtable featuring Araki, Hal Hartley, Tamara Jenkins and David Gordon Green, who, of course, is working on his own stoner comedy (of sorts), Pineapple Express.

Update: "Truth is, in a perfect world pot wouldn't turn my mouth into a sandbox and my nervous system into one giant, uptight twitch," offers Nathan Lee in the Voice. "Can't stand the stuff, frankly, so I'm not exactly an ideal candidate to evaluate the blunted verisimilitude of Smiley Face, stoner farce par excellence. On the plus side, 100 percent sober when I watched it, I can say with some authority that Dylan Haggerty has written an eleventh-hour candidate for the funniest movie of 2007, that Gregg Araki has directed his finest film since 1997's Nowhere, and that Faris, flawless, rocks their inspired idiot odyssey in a virtuoso comedic turn."

Update, 12/27: Smiley Face was originally to be called "The Being John Malkovich of All Pot Smoking Stoner Movies," notes Eric Kohn, who tells the story of its long trip to theaters in the New York Press, noting, too, that "it's virtually impossible not to read Smiley Face as a loopy generational statement."

Update, 12/28: "It's a fittingly loose, shambling little nothing of a comedy that's occasionally inspired, but at least a draft or two short of its potential," writes Scott Tobias at the AV Club. "Still, it's a pleasure to watch Faris - a gifted, likeable comedian who tends to be the best element of many terrible movies - wander slack-jawed through a surreal day in Los Angeles."

Posted by dwhudson at December 26, 2007 7:23 AM