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Smilepulled off one of thecreepiest viral marketing campaignsin recent memory.
From there, what Rose believed to be the patients paranoid ramblings became all too real.
It haunts Rose relentlessly, appearing at random in public and in private.
Credit:Paramount Pictures/Paramount +
WhileSmilewas popular with audiences, its finale left fans divided and curious.
Read on forSmiles ending explained, plus whats possibly in store for the highly anticipated sequel.
Warning: This article contains spoilers forSmile.
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Why does the entity appear as Rose’s mother?
In the final act, this metaphor becomes more literal when the entity manifests as Roses deceased mother.
She thus returns to her abandoned family home the site of her mothers death.
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The entity counters: Your mindmakesit real.
What happens when Rose escapes the house?
She goes to his apartment for solace and asks him to stay with her.
Walter Thomson/Paramount Pictures/Paramount +
Yeah, of course Ill stay with you, he replies …Ill stay with you forever.
And then he smilesthatsmile.
She runs inside, locks him out of the house, and stares down her ultimate fate.
Paramount Pictures/Paramount +
Does Rose survive in the end?
It crawls inside a catatonic Rose, now reduced to a mere vessel.
Joel eventually breaks down the door, only to find a smiling Rose dousing herself in gasoline.
She lights a match and goes up in flames, presumably passing the curse onto him.
But the ending also sparked debate, particularly over its treatment of mental illness.
What doesSmile’s ending mean for the sequel?
Smiles successmeant a sequel was highly probable.
It didnt take long beforeSmile 2was announced.
The new movie hits theaters on Oct. 18, 2024, just over two years after the original arrived.
If nothing else, that could set up several possibilities for conceptually expanding the franchise and its mythology.
