Smiley Face

While many of the nation’s top critics used their dismissive reviews of the new comedy House Bunny to lament the unfortunate career of its star, Anna Faris, a few nodded to Smiley Face, the barely released 2007 stoner comedy that screens tonight at the UWM Union Theatre at 7 p.m., as one of the few films that lived up to the potential of its lead actress. Although drug movies arrive with a built in fan base, this story about a woman who accidentally consumes pot cupcakes is a cut weirder than the typical Dude, Where’s My Car fare, in part because it was directed by Gregg Araki, whose films are typically bleak dramas about drug-addled, dysfunctional youths. Needless to say, Smiley Face is a far brighter movie than Araki’s last film, Mysterious Skin, about two sexually molested teenagers.