Smile

My friend is visiting Shanghai and giving lectures to pharmacists in one of the hospitals. Her partner wrote me how shocked they were to learn that in China, an ostensibly Communist-governed country, the health care system is privately operated. And yet, to view this picture, you would never guess that the whole health system was not hunky-dory and just bursting to help deformed children. You could call this omission naive, or you could call it misleading---even dishonest. Smile is an advertisement for a regime that holds millions of dissenters in a gulag of slave factories and conducts a huge number of public executions per year. Furthermore, the perpetrators of the Tianenmen Square massacre have never been brought to justice, which goes fundamentally against human rights and human nature. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see Shanghai looking so comely, and Mika's super figure is waved around in almost every shot. The picture is a courageous attempt to sell Volunteering Overseas and for that it deserves brownie points, but can charity ever be divorced from politics? What price in oppression is this picture paying for its sanitised portrait of Communist China?

I get one for me and one for my wife which I usually don't watch. This one I did and was pleasantly surprised. As mentioned elsewhere the shots of China were as intriguing as those of Malibu. They're all quite revealing, details of life at both locations that I didn't expect. But the real surprise was the lead, Mika Boorem, who I don't recall having seen anywhere before. I've never seen anyone play 'innocent' and naive as boldly as this girl. What's also surprising is that her Chinese counterparts also come across as unusually devoid of negative traits with one exception.

Anyway, this is the true story of someone needing an operation and how she eventually got it thanks to a teenager from Malibu. Not my usual idea of a fun movie, but I was engaged throughout. Not quite sure what did it, but if you're a guy looking to impress a charitable girl, this movie is a good bet.

Two redeeming qualities of this film were the cinemaphotography and a storyline that was hard to resist. However, the script, the direction, and some scenes, were just awful. I kept asking myself why such a good cast would have produced such a bad movie. My only conclusion was that these actors must believe in the charity which underlies the plot of the movie, but knew the movie was filled with flaws.

This film could have been so much better, and reached a larger audience accordingly. What makes me think this is that with all of the problems of the film, some scenes being painfully bad to watch, I still wanted to see how the obvious conclusion would resolve itself.

This movie isn't about the character makeover that Katie has or the facial makeover that Lindsay has. I kept on wondering why they would call the movie Smile ! I had my answer. "Smile" is about the ability to genuinely smile, to smile for something that doesn't go through you, to smile with mushy emotions inside, to smile with tears in your eyes, to smile at the happiness of someone besides yourself ! Its what you would do while you watched "Smile". They have also probably chosen the perfect tag-line for this movie. Watch the movie and you will find out why !

I give this movie all its rating because of Lindsay and her dad and everything that revolves around them. Very very touching to watch a father sacrifice everything for the love of an adopted child. Cinematography too was excellent. The scenic countryside holding hands with the pleasant music score adds to the feel good touch of brilliantly done scenes such as the father and child dancing etc.

The initial chunk of the movie is a lil overdone potpourri of characters. Character development was essential, but it spills over into more of a striking contrasting difference between the lives of two girls born on the same day. It puts forth a wrong perspective which could well and truly stand in line with the archaic stereotype of lives in developing countries. They could also have gone easy on the last set of photo stills to don the movie screen. It tends to give a lil bit of the "true story" thing away !

Given its pros and cons, I would certainly recommend this movie even if its a date movie !

I didn't hear about this movie at all. I was walking through Movie Gallery and came across this movie. I initially noticed Sean Astin's name so I picked it up. I then realized that the movie was based on OPERATION SMILE. I had to rent the movie then. Operation Smile is an organization that goes to third world countries and does facial reconstructive surgery on children. I personally think this is amazing. The movie captured the heart-rending pain that physically deformed children go through. It captured the love the parents had for those children and the sacrifices that they go through. It also captured Katie's journey from selfish spoiled little brat to someone who thinks about somebody else for a change. It showed her compassion bloom and it was a very pleasant movie to watch. I heartily recommend it.