Always Smile

All great films have a hint of melodrama, and yet if you were to go through the canon of classic cinema there are very few that could be described as truly melodramatic. Their messages run deeper through the film than just in the surface level dialogue, they are found more deeply in the nature of the directing, the beats of the soundtrack, and, of course, in the subtext of the script. ‘Always Smile’ has no panache to it, nothing to separate it from eye rolling, cringe inducing melodrama.

‘Always Smile’ comes from prolific indie filmmaking production company Hypatude Productions, and is directed by Hypatude’s founder Jason Park. Park’s passion for film, and for filmmaking, is obvious and present in ‘Always Smile’, yet sadly that never translates to any genuine quality.

The film follows two brothers, Alex (played by Jason Park) and Johnny (played by Min Keon Kim) who, following the tragic deaths of their parents, have fallen into homelessness. The two brothers live out of a van, with Alex working a dead-end job and Johnny attending community college. That life of daily struggle is shaken up one day when they witness a woman’s kidnapping.

Crucially, that critical moment does not come until the fifty-fifth minute, only thirty minutes before the end. If this were a longer film, then spending an hour building up the characters would be sensible but with just thirty minutes to go, there isn’t enough time to properly find a resolution. The structural problem of ‘Always Smile’ is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to its lacklustre script.

The film falls into one of the pitfalls of writing characters under the age of twenty. It simply doesn’t understand how twenty-something year olds talk, with each character riffing off cringeworthy lines of modern slang. This attempt to make the script seem realistic has the complete opposite effect, instead making some scenes laboriously painful to get through. The actors do their best, but performances all round are poor and often stilted.

It’s a film that makes the questionable decision to glorify poverty, and as the film ramps up to an action-packed conclusion, that blatantly raises its head. Throughout, the struggle of the brothers is presented as noble, glossing over the harsher extremities that their situation offers. Other serious themes of sex trafficking are similarly glossed over, merely acting as a hastily added plot device to bridge the divide between the first hour and its rushed conclusion.

‘Always Smile’ is a film lacking in any subtlety. It devolves almost instantaneously into preachy melodrama without nuance and cleverness to its message. This extends beyond the script to the directing and to the soundtrack, making for an altogether grating experience.