THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"Smart People"
Too Smart To Be Perfect, Too Wrong To Be Right
By Omar P.L. Moore/April 11, 2008
Thomas Haden Church (left) and Dennis Quaid
in "Smart People", which opened today in North America. The film is
directed by Noam Murro. (Photo: Miramax Films)
"Smart People", which opened today across the U.S. and Canada, has good
characters, great performances (especially by Thomas Haden Church and Ellen
Page), but the ingredients together somehow do not make the film itself
especially good. A Pennsylvania-based family scarred by the sudden death
of its matriarch, tries to piece things together in the wake of the tragedy.
Everybody's favorite word, "dysfunctional", is the operative to describe the Wetherhold family. Lawrence (Dennis Quaid) an English literature college
professor, is all over the map and has a phobia about sitting on the passenger
side of a car, or the right side of the car at all, for that matter. The
phobia may or may not have something to do with his daughter Vanessa (played by
Ellen Page, sublime here once again after Oscar-nominated "Juno"), a "young
Republican" reminiscent of Michael J. Fox's Alex on the television show "Family
Ties" (perhaps Vanessa was Ms. Page's homage to her fellow Canadian compatriot
Mr. Fox.)
Then there is the adopted brother of Lawrence, played by Thomas Haden Church,
great here as Chuck, a single man who has no girlfriend and no job.
Vanessa is drawn to him, but Chuck could care less about the 17-year-old girl who
is focusing on acing her SAT test even while her father Lawrence has been
concussed in hospital, which is where Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), a former student
of the professor, has been tending to him. The events mesh uneasily, and
Hartigan-Wetherhold doesn't work particularly well, even when a subplot which
doesn't belong at all, arises. We care little for whatever romance
develops between Mr. Quaid and Ms. Parker's characters, and there is something
about Ms. Parker's character -- perhaps even about the actor herself -- which
doesn't fit "Smart People". She seems far too smart to be in a film like
this -- where Jennifer Aniston (who is better at playing an aloof or cold
persona may have been a better choice for the role.
Ms. Parker has more of a drama quality to her acting ("Sex and the City: The
Movie" will no doubt reveal this next month) and her comedy chops aren't nearly
as good (she was in a comedy film called "Failure To Launch" with Matthew McConaughey in 20o6 which didn't work well.)
Mark Poirer's script has lots of funny lines but a story which drifts as
aimlessly as its well-drawn characters, and that is the main bone of contention
with Noam Murro's film, which also features Ashton Holmes of "A History of
Violence" as Vanessa's brother James. "Smart People" could have been
smarter by leaving Mr. Quaid's ill-at-ease character on the shelf along with Ms.
Parker's and simply delved more into the characters of Vanessa and Chuck.
The film would have been much more focused, funny, endearing and complete than
it ends up being.
"Smart People" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for
language, brief teen drug and alcohol use, and for some sexuality. The
film's duration is one hour and 33 minutes.
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