Dan's Papers - April 18, 2008 -

What's in a title anyway? One might assume that a film called Smart People is either a story about intelligent people and their foibles, or perhaps a parody that looks deep into dumbness. Smart People is neither. Perhaps for future reference the movie could change its name to Neurotic, Unhappy People Who Are Just Smart Enough to Speak Well.

It's the lackluster tale of Professor Lawrence Wetherhold, played by an eager but miscast Dennis Quaid. You may remember having teachers who felt they were too smart for the students and as a result, any interaction with them was considered a chore. Wetherhold is a widower too, so naturally his grief not only retards his own life, but keeps him distant from his two bright children, Vanessa (Ellen Page, Juno) and James (Ashton Holmes, A History of Violence).

Vanessa fancies herself an intellectual, and as she did in her Oscar-nominated turn in Juno, Page is a kid who is not necessarily too smart for her own good, but just kind of thinks she is. Once again, she's whipping around zingy dialogue, but this time she ditches cool charm for stodgy and prissy. And as for James, he's a poet. (That's about it because Holmes' character is seemingly abandoned by the script.) The idea here is that this is a house of misery, and the only thing that holds them together is their reported brainpower.

Naturally, love and redemption must both forcibly enter the fray. First to dive into the murky shallow end of this pool is Sarah Jessica Parker's character, Janet Hartigan. Parker plays an M.D. who reveals herself to the professor as a former student, after a meeting in the ER and realizing that eerily enough, the schoolgirl crush hasn't subsided. Meanwhile, the good doctor manages to stay with Quaid, helping him find reasons to embrace not being such a jerk all the time, his adopted brother Chuck (Thomas Hayden Church, Sideways, Spiderman 3) arrives to further clear the maudlin air of the Wetherhold house. Also bright, but stooped in stoner-mode, his style of living life "one day at a time" proves to be oh-so-endearingly-righteous, and soon his dopey way breaks the ice between the cold father/ kids trio and captures the heart of...his niece?

You're right. Ewwww.

This debut work by commercial director Noam Murro and first big-screen screenplay from novelist Mark Jude Poirier really lacks, but it's not that the film is made badly it's just bad. It may cross your mind after seeing this film that the creative team may have just watched Little Miss Sunshine and thought that the dysfunctional family from that movie didn't receive enough of a thorough examination. But where's the closer look? Any sympathy generated for this story's characters - who certainly have been through a terrible time - is purely bestowed by the natural instincts of filmgoers. But the family in this story isn't a group of good people waiting for a fix; they're just unlikable people. They saunter around behaving as though intelligence is a burden that forces them to understand the depths of suffering, yet insist on qualifying themselves as smart. However, instead of feeling that this group is at all wise, learned, cerebral, or any other term that refers to the possession of a high IQ, the phrase that keeps coming to mind is pseudo-intellectual. And if that was the point, that none of them are as smart as they think they are, it's not demonstrated in any clear way. If the filmmakers are saying "ignorance is bliss" - that being intelligent only leads to pain - then they should have picked a different vehicle than a dialogue-driven film with independent styling, because none of the actual smart people in the audience are going to appreciate that ignorant jab one little bit.

Ian Stark is a frequent TV and radio commentator on the film industry, and consults with private organizations on their collections. He is widely published on film and other arts/culture topics.