Movie Review Smart People

Smart People (2008) 

Directed by Noam Murro 

Written by Mark Poirer 

Starring Dennis Quaid, Elliot Page, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thomas Haden Church

Release Date April 11th, 2008 

Published April 10th, 2008

A terrific cast attempts to cover the flaws of an irritatingly self satisfied screenplay and amateur direction in Smart People. Working against type Dennis Quaid impresses but is left adrift while Oscar nominees Elliot Page and Thomas Haden Haden Church try too hard to leave behind their defining performances behind. Then there is Sarah Jessica Parker who essays the only interesting character in this movie but is undone by the movie itself when, late in the film, things go completely off the rails.

Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is a brilliant but socially inept literature professor at Carnegie Mellon University. His wife died a while back and he has yet to even try to move on, every item of her clothing remains upstairs in a second bedroom that was her closet. Lawrence's daughter Vanessa (Elliot Page) has taken on most of the wifely tasks, cooking, cleaning and such, even seeming to raise herself in her father's pompous, intellectual image. While Lawrence awaits word from publishers on his latest intellectual screed on an obscure literary legend, Vanessa is waiting for word from Stanford and studying far too diligently for a perfect SAT score.

Their version of domestic bliss is upended when jerk Lawrence tries to retrieve his car from an impound lot and ends up falling after climbing over a fence. The fall causes a seizure and that means he can no longer drive. When Vanessa refuses to be his chauffeur she allows Lawrence's adopted brother Chuck to move in in exchange for becoming his driver. The situation is entirely unsuitable for Lawrence who has long ago tired of his brothers constant mooching and get rich quick scheming. Meanwhile, in the hospital Lawrence meets Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), a doctor and former student of his whom he graded poorly but now he is desperate to somehow impress.

These four Smart People begin a series of collisions and disruptions of each other's lives that seem as if they should be entertaining. Instead, Smart People is a movie that just sort of happens and then it's over. It seems as if it should be funnier than it is. The talented cast makes you believe it is more charming than it really is. Director Noam Murro's competent direction contributes to the idea of Smart People as a smart movie. Further post film reflection however brings about the revelation that there really isn't much too Smart People at all.

Mark Jude Poirier wrote the script for Smart People but his real contribution to the film is a quote in the New York Times in which he marvels at the fact that Smart People is a movie where not much really happens. A film about nothing? Seinfeld this is not. Smart People is actually about something but figuring what that is would require us to spend more time with these rather boring, self absorbed characters. Lawrence's defining trait is pomposity and Dennis Quaid eats a good deal of screen time demonstrating that quality. Thomas Haden Church gets to be the funky, pot smoking uncle but it makes him no less self absorbed.

Elliot Page takes on the role of Vanessa as if it were a repudiation of her Juno character. Don't worry, the smartassy sing-song sarcasm is still in place but it comes with a character who is an overachieving young republican with no friends and a seriously odd obsession for the clothing of a casual Laura Bush. As for Parker, she doesn't come off as terribly self absorbed except when she is the victim of some seriously poor editing and directorial decisions late in the film. It seems that several important scenes that might explain some of her character's bizarre actions late in the film were cut for one reason or another. This leaves the character of Janet looking shrewish and off putting because her actions are almost entirely without motive.