Smiley Face (review)

Maybe this is funny if you’re actually stoned. When taken sober, not so much. Anna Faris -- that ditzy chick from the Scary Movie movies -- is Jane, a California girl having a really bad day thanks to her habitual overuse of pot: she eats her roommate’s Very Important cupcakes in a fit of the munchies, forgets to pay the power bill, screws up an audition (she’s an aspiring actress, of course) because she’s high, and that’s just the beginning of a chain of tedious and unlikely events involving her attempted acquisition of some quick dough so she can make more cupcakes and make everything right. I never cared whether she would succeed or not, and was unable to muster either sympathy for her predicament or amusment at it. Absent any charm or even a believable performance as someone totally brain-baked on Faris’s part, this becomes nothing more than a random and ridiculous -- in an unamusing way -- collection of pothead slapstick. It’s extremely minor stuff from acclaimed indie filmmaker Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin), even if it was the toast of Sundance and Toronto. [now playing at the IFC Center in New York; arrives on DVD January 8]