I Smile Back is a 2015 American drama film directed by Adam Salky and based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Amy Koppelman, who wrote the screenplay with Paige Dylan.
The film stars Sarah Silverman as an upper-middle-class wife and mother struggling with mental illness and addiction.
[3] In a nice home in suburban New York, homemaker Laney Brooks snorts cocaine in the bathroom wearing only her panties while her husband Bruce plays outside with their young children, Eli and Janey.
As Bruce gets ready for work in the morning, Laney eyes the bathroom medicine cabinet, then prepares the children's lunches.
She greets her friend Susan and is prevented from entering for not having her ID; the guard reprimands her for not reading the school's emails notifying her of the new security measures.
At a hotel, she has sex with Susan's husband Donny, then chides him afterward for trying to show affection, telling him love means nothing.
At dinner, Laney gets drunk sipping vodka and responds angrily when Eli relates a school friend's opinions.
At bedtime she reminds Eli of his upcoming piano recital, then argues again with Bruce about their dog, dreading its eventual death.
She phones Eli's friend's mother, curses at her, and hangs up, before drinking more vodka and swallowing some pills while snorting cocaine.
She enters Janey's bedroom and uses a teddy bear to help her masturbate before starting to cry, crawling down the hall, and falling unconscious.
While Bruce attends the conference, she secretly takes a cab to Roger's house, meeting her half-sister Daisy for the first time.
When her family discovers and confronts her, Laney gets in her SUV and tries to commit suicide by speeding through a busy intersection with her eyes closed.
The website's critical consensus reads, "I Smile Back serves as a powerful showcase for Sarah Silverman's dramatic range, but fails to surround her committed performance with a movie worthy of its depth".