Film

Adorable pothead Jane (Faris) alternates bong hits and video-game sessions in her cruddy Burbank apartment. Appetite calls. Moving to the fridge, she consumes a full tray of her roomie’s cupcakes, all of which include more pot. Suddenly aware of this fact (how, exactly, is unclear), she endeavors to bake replacements, but only ends up scorching her remaining weed in five sticks of butter. It’s here, when the hint of a plot would normally assert itself, that Jane approaches her jewelry box. “I daren’t,” she murmurs—and breaks out her emergency stash.

Smiley Face is a stoner movie. Even if you find such things distasteful, there is an art to them: a deliberate sluggishness, a willingness to float on hazy wisps of random chat and paranoia. Or something. This one’s not quite in the league of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, whose perfect premise was in the title itself. But director Gregg Araki, coming off 2004’s devastating hustler drama Mysterious Skin, seems happy to play, and his camera is the furthest thing from undisciplined. (When Jane eventually makes it out of the house, Araki’s severe canted angles eject her from her parked car, traumatized.)

The real reason to invest your time is Anna Faris, America’s best-kept comedy secret and long overdue for the kind of major stardom her male counterparts enjoy as a matter of course. Here, finally, is the actor cut loose, and she’s a wonder of precise befuddlement. Where is her Knocked Up?