If Smiley Face were directed by Spike Jonze, it would have been a masterpiece. Its script, by Dylan Haggerty, is consistently entertaining, frequently hysterical, and occasionally quite inventive in how it depicts a day in the life of its stoner protagonist. Perhaps even more importantly, it understands the episodic, tangential logic of the pothead. The specious associations, the noncommittal detours of thought and action, the staunch belief in the nobility of your quest, the disparity between what you mean to say and what actually comes out of your mouth; all are rendered with a knowing clarity that will be commended by the herbal enthusiast and will, hopefully, prove enlightening to those members of the square community who wouldn't know from personal experience. But just as brilliance borne of bong hits tends to collapse upon itself in sober language, so too does Haggerty's script in the hands of director Gregg Araki.
The tones of the script and the direction are strangely at odds with one another. Haggerty, it seems, envisions Smiley Face as a Kaufman-esque romp a la Being John Malkovich. Araki, on the other hand, appears to be aiming for Half Baked. It's actually quite the anomaly. There are many great scripts which have been diluted by pedestrian direction, but it's rare to see premise and presentation duke it out so heatedly.
Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas, for instance, boasts one of the greatest independent screenplays of the decade; its direction, unfortunately, is not of the same caliber. But where the sublime Bickford's occasionally weak presentation can be attributed to budgetary restraints and writer-director Scott Lew's inexperience behind the camera, Smiley Face is wrong by design. With another script, the certainty with which Araki creates his vision would be commendable. Here, however, his steadfast commitment to his vision is to the detriment of the overall film. I am more inclined to forgive a director who can't quite get it perfectly right than one who gets it purposefully wrong. (I'm looking at you, too, Paul Haggis.)
This is not to say that Araki doesn't do anything right. The irony -- and what is ultimately most frustrating about the film -- is that the cast and crew pretty much nail what Araki asks of them. But his allegiance is to his vision of the screenplay, not to the screenplay itself. Rather than make a film about silly things, Araki has simply made a silly film. Being John Malkovich, as an example, works because the characters are not in on the joke. In Smiley Face, however, everyone is painted with too broad a brush.
Everyone, that is, except Jane. Anna Farris, to whom I am usually indifferent, proves herself a comedienne of immeasurable skill and intelligence. If Lucille Ball got high, it would look something like this. Everything she does -- the drawn out pauses, the abrupt shifts, the incongruity between tone and content -- rings both funny and true. It is a bold, boisterous performance that demands attention. Unfortunately, it also demands a straight man to play off of, something the film does not provide. John Cho is the kind of dry, deadpan foil Farris needs, but he is onscreen for a scant two scenes. Under a more confident director the love-struck Brevin Ericson could have filled this quota. But Araki, seemingly afraid to let so much as a single shot go by without a gag, directs John Krasinski to play Brevin as a Napoleon Dynamite when the film really needs a Michael Bluth.
On "Arrested Development," Jason Bateman played Michael Bluth as the audience surrogate, assuring us that, yes, it's all nonsense and these people you're watching are not normal; without him we would feel lost, as though we were missing part of the joke, which is pretty much how you feel through much of Smiley Face. Which is a shame, because the jokes are phenomenal, even when they aren't executed to their fullest. (Jane's logic behind framing a portrait of President Garfield as a short-hand way of saying she likes to eat lasagna is particularly inspired.)
Having seen the film several times, I can assure you that it does reward repeat viewings; granted, this may be because it takes that long to fight your way through Araki's direction, but Haggerty's script and Farris's performance yield enough moments of inspired stoner glory to justify the effort. And please give a raise/promotion/Oscar to whoever is responsible for the unlikely yet inspired casting of Adam Brody as Jane's dealer. That was totally awesome, man.