Smile, Smile, Smile!

A marching drumbeat sets the tone for the opening scene as an unidentified prisoner is being dragged into the frame. Two soldiers salute their commanding officer, who is sharply dressed in a beret and shiny black boots. After the screaming prisoner is led outside to be tortured, Jacob Kay and Aiden Clark, who both play the anonymous soldiers, enter a conversation about everything under the sun – from the mechanics of their salute just moments earlier to the pros and cons of becoming vegetarian, and whether pigs can even have depression. Most of this conversation happens while the second soldier is playing a game on his phone, which further enhances the farce-like and satirical tone.

Everything about Smile, Smile, Smile! is mysterious. From the secret facility where this operation is held, which looks like an abandoned warehouse, to the unnamed soldiers and the organization, an enigmatic layer surrounds this short. We are pretty much left in the dark about these things, and as the short continues, we realize that it’s not necessary to have everything spelled out to us in order to enjoy the film.

As we are kept in the dark figuratively, this short is actually literally filmed in near-total darkness. This made it difficult to tell one actor from another and which character was speaking. Better lighting in general could help give the film a better sense of direction, since mostly all the actors were dressed in dark clothes, and this made differentiating them in the dim lighting hard. But if the dimness was there to keep the film mysterious, viewers might be able to see that this could be a directorial choice and let it pass.

Since this short was pretty much entirely filmed in what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse, audience members might chalk it up to the acoustics of such a venue lending to the reverb that could be heard throughout the film. However, this became rather distracting over time. Due to the excessive reverb, the syncing of the movement of the actors’ lips with the dialogue was slightly delayed. For better immersion purposes, perhaps editing out the reverb would be a good choice.

A clever technique that the director Oliver Griffiths employs is utilizing the sound effects to serve the film’s purpose better. For the most part, the prisoner is tortured off-screen, or outside the warehouse where we can’t see him. Sound effects of buzzing jigsaws and screams effectively convey that the prisoner is being brutalized. This technique is used more than once over the course of the film. And it demonstrates Griffiths’s good directorial instincts in keeping the violence and gore to a tasteful minimum so as not to alienate general audiences and keep the film accessible.

Griffiths even makes a cameo appearance in the film as Dave, a fellow soldier in a bloody hazmat suit. Dave is instrumental to the scene where the main characters are performing a card trick. He is asked to bring over a bag, from which Kay’s character produces the card that Clark’s character had drawn previously, right out of said bag. The comedy continues when, as Dave wheels out the latest prisoner casualty, Kay’s character requests a coffee. Clark’s character even asks for one (“No sugars in mine”), further offsetting the dark humor of this moment.

For the most part, the short is filmed in one single unbroken shot, with the two unnamed soldiers shooting the breeze, while all this dark stuff is happening around them. The irony couldn’t be missed on viewers, as the deadpan humor both in the written dialogue and the action creates some very much-needed comedic relief in this bleak setting. With that being said, the script is very clever. Lines bordering on black humor and philosophical outtakes punctuate the script and create lasting impressions on the viewer. Written by Jacob Kay and Josef Duncan in 2019, Smile, Smile, Smile! was the semi-finalist for Best Short Comedy at the 2025 Lit Laughs International Comedy Festival. Sadly, Duncan passed away in late 2019. Kay and Director Oliver Griffiths collaborated together and made the film in dedication to Duncan.

At times, mixing dark humor with situational comedy, the short successfully delivers as a black satire with themes of real human interactions and camaraderie. Viewers will be pleasantly surprised to find it is a 14-minute philosophical romp through comedic territory, offering thought-provoking insights based off the actors’ on-point performances and impeccable comedic timing. Centered around two soldiers and their casual conversation as they stand guard inside a secret facility, at its core, this is a film about human connections. Have you ever imagined what could possibly pass off as small talk between two soldiers during a special-ops mission? Smile, Smile, Smile! satisfies your curiosity and so much more.