Hide Your Smiling Faces (2013)

Directed by: Daniel Patrick Carbone
Country: USA

Movie Review: Although not totally gratifying, there’s a lot going on in “Hide Your Smiling Faces”, a dissimilar coming-of-age drama from debutant Daniel Patrick Carbone. After a terrible and mysterious accident that took their neighbor friend’s life, two adolescent brothers become deeply affected, suspecting the victim’s father. Wandering aimlessly throughout the fields, these young boys try to continue with their wrestling games and pranks, but their heads are occupied with the idea of death, a consciousness very present not only on the human side but also in the animal, which represents an important part in the narrative. Youth in rural America is portrayed with sobriety, giving the exact sad sense of non-supportiveness from the family, but in the other hand is clear some apathy in diverse occasions along with narrative breaches that hamper its ambitions to become more fruitful. The performances by the young actors Ryan Jones and Nathan Varnson were solid enough to transmit a concealed anguish that no person can notice but is always there, ruminating their minds and souls. Other relevant aspect in the film is the constant presence of guns, a grave problem faced in our societies, especially in US. Creating a particular mood that comes pretty close to the works of David Gordon Green, “Hide Your Smiling Faces” is penetrating and occasionally haunting, keeping the line that divides life and death so close, that nature itself becomes more suffocating than the harsh summer humidity. Carbone’s resolute direction gives good indications for the future while dialogues and narrative sequence have a bit more to be improved.