Movie Review: ‘Smile… The Worst is Yet to Come’ – Love, Loss, and the Courage to Keep Going

Do you often feel like you are experiencing the worst time of your life? Like everything around you is going to sh!t and you just can’t catch a break? The kind of stretch where bad news feels stacked, where even your small wins don’t feel like wins at all, and you start wondering if life is quietly laughing at you. Those moments when smiling feels like an insult to your own pain.

Well, the truth is, you can still smile… because the worst, indeed, is yet to come. Chloe Lenihan’s debut feature, ‘Smile… The Worst is Yet to Come‘, does a very good job of reminding you of this uncomfortable but oddly liberating truth. With a title that feels both taunting and honest, the film doesn’t promise relief but rather, it offers perspective. Not the glossy, self-help kind, but the raw, lived-in kind that comes from sitting with grief, disappointment, and emotional exhaustion long enough to understand them.

This film marks the director’s debut feature, co-written with Joseph Mancuso. For a first feature, there is a quiet confidence in the storytelling. It doesn’t rely on spectacle or forced drama but hinges on emotional accumulation.

It is a story of an LA-based couple grappling with several setbacks that are putting a strain not only on their relationship, but on their individual lives as well. These are not surface-level problems that can be fixed with a conversation or a good night out. These are life-altering blows that would sit in anyone’s chest for days.

Joseph Mancuso, who also co-wrote the film, plays Ben convincingly. Ben is a man in his early forties who feels like he has failed at everything. His business venture, a speakeasy bar he partnered on with a friend, collapsed before it could even take off. As if that wasn’t enough, he suffers early signs of a heart attack, a brutal reminder of his own eventual mortality. And hanging over everything is the emotional weight of he and Birdie, his wife, struggling to have a child. A pregnancy that they were excited about just failed in its early stages through a miscarriage.

Truth is, this is a tragedy that feels painfully ordinary. Something many couples silently carry.

Ben is trying his best to shoulder it all. Not just his own disappointments, but the responsibility of protecting Birdie from feeling like she is somehow less than whole. There’s a quiet masculinity to the way he does this. Internalising pain, suppressing fear, trying to be strong even when strength is running on empty. On his father’s advice, Ben decides they should take a weekend getaway to Big Bear Lake, hoping the change of environment might help them reconnect and reignite their dwindling romance.

In many ways, this feels like a familiar and deeply relatable story. Most people who have loved seriously have been there. Those moments when everything feels like it’s collapsing at the same time. When you’re barely holding on, and the only thing that feels real anymore is the person next to you. And even that begins to feel fragile. There’s a particular fear that creeps in during those moments. The fear is that if you don’t make an effort to hold on to what you have, you might lose everything at once.

At the lake house, things start to look up, at least on the surface. The quiet, the distance from LA, and the stillness of Big Bear Lake create space for breathing. A chance meeting with a younger couple, Jerek  (played by Ethan Jones Romero) and January (played by Krystina Alabado), seemingly injects new energy into their stay. Witty, spontaneous, and emotionally open, the younger couple forces Ben and Birdie into deeper conversations they have been avoiding for far too long.

Joseph Mancuso brings a strong sense of sincerity to Ben. He comes across as a man who appears to have everything under control on the outside, but is emotionally unravelling beneath the surface. His performance exposes both Ben’s strength and vulnerability without ever tipping into melodrama. It feels lived-in, restrained, and honest, and that makes the character deeply human.

Elizabeth Masucci is equally compelling as Birdie. She is beautiful, hurting, and clearly exhausted, yet not ready to give up on herself or her marriage. There’s a quiet resilience in her performance that speaks volumes. Birdie isn’t loud about her pain, but you feel it in her pauses, her glances, and the way she navigates conversations she doesn’t quite know how to finish.

The couple feels like opposites in many ways, yet that contrast is exactly what makes them work. They complete each other in subtle ways, and you can’t help but root for them from the beginning to the end of the film.

Jerek and January add much-needed humour to the story. They feel like a younger Generation Z couple plugged into trends, livestreaming everything, and seemingly comfortable in their skin. Yet beneath the surface, they come across as genuinely connected. They understand and complement each other, subtly challenging the idea that only opposites are meant to attract.

A majority of the film is set in the lake house at Big Bear Lake and its surrounding environment. This limited setting works in the film’s favour, stripping away distractions and forcing attention onto the emotional core of the story. The cinematography, sound design, and score all feel purposeful. Nothing is flashy or overdone, but everything feels carefully considered and cohesive.

The pacing makes the film’s 84-minute runtime feel longer than it actually is. But rather than being a flaw, this deliberate pacing allows you to sit with the dialogue, absorb it, and reflect on it. Every word feels intentional, and the silences are just as important as the conversations.

By the time the film ends, you are reminded that it is okay, sometimes even necessary, to take stock of your life and force a reinvention of yourself. Everything can feel like it’s going wrong, but you still have to live in the moment. You have to stay aware of the good around you, because yes, the worst is indeed yet to come. Grief can come, life can stall, especially for adults, but you have to keep moving, and you have to keep trying.

I will score ‘Smile… The Worst is Yet to Come‘ a 7/10. This might not be a film many people rush to watch, but it is a solid and emotionally grounded feature debut that delivers its message subtly and honestly. Hopefully, people will give it the chance it deserves.