CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

I Smile Back

2015 film

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

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. The film had its world premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2015. It also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 16, 2015. The film was released in a limited release on October 23, 2015, by Broad Green Pictures. Despite the film's mixed critical reception, Silverman's performance was met with acclaim and earned her a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role at the 22nd Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Editorial summary

“I Smile Back” enters the record as 2015 film. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Smile, Back and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2015, 2008—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Smile, Back and film.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“I Smile Back” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Smile, Back and film provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2015 and 2008.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “I Smile Back”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow I Smile Back primary sources, I Smile Back archive and Smile research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “I Smile Back”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “I Smile Back” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.