Smart People

When a movie spells it's name with scrabble letters, you know I am going to be interested in it. I was a bit hesitant because the people who produced this also produced the bore fest that was Sideways. I became even more hesitant when I found out this was not only a first time screen writer but a first time director, usually a bad combination. Yet, the reviews I read were generally positive and the preview was pretty funny. Plus, Thomas Hayden Church has always done good work to me, yes even in Wings.

Lawrence Weatherhold(A Pot bellied, limp having Dannis Quaid) is a widowed college professor who seems to hate life. He is disgusted by students, hates his co-workers and cannot remember the name of anyone because he doesn't feel they deserve his memory. He is a dishevelled curmudgeon, but he is very bright and that gives him an air of superiority. When his car is towed he hops over the fence to get his briefcase out and when he is climbing the fence he falls and ends up in the hospital. His doctor, Janet Hartigan(Sarah Jessica Parker), is a former student of his, who had a school girl crush, except he is the reason she started to hate literature. His daughter, Vanessa(Ellen Page), is a creepy Republican robot girl who is trying to score a perfect SAT score and cannot be bothered by him. When Lawrence fell he had a seizure and now cannot drive for six months. His slacker pot head adopted brother, Chuck(Church) moves in to be his driver, but Chuck is very unreliable to do anything but make trouble. Janet's crush is rekindled and Lawrence and her go out on a date. More things happen but Smart People is not a movie driven by plot.

For a first time writer, Mark Poirier has written a pretty good script. It is a Little too clever for its own good at times and sometimes it can really disconnect the audience but overall it is pretty solid. The plotting is a little screwy as the Ellen Page character kind of goes all over the map in terms of plot, character an dialog, but Page handles it all very well furthering proving that she is the go to girl for whip smart young characters. Her character can be compared to her star making turn as Juno, but there are some pretty major differences and Page eases into the role of a creepy Stepford type young lady charmingly. Quaid on the other hand does an okay job, but he is woefully miscast here. I guess Paul Giamatti was busy doing other things because this part is tailor made for him. This is the first movie in which Sarah Jessica Parker did not annoy me. She actually did a good job even though I think her character was the most under written and was written to be prone to pointless relationship panic attacks. The real star though is Thomas Hayden Church. He has the funniest character but also the most interesting character. Some of that is the writing and some of it is just that Church is a very talented character actor. He has this understated delivery that really helps sell some of the funnier one-liners.

Smart People is about how much of a hard time academics have relating to the normal world. It features the line "Self Absorption is underrated" and that kind of underlies the whole film. People obsessed with themselves have to find a way to let someone else in and find a way to exist with others. The story does fall into the trappings of cliche with the pregnancy factor. Why do people who have sex always end up pregnant in movies? Even those who use condoms end up pregnant. It is such a tired plot contrivance to break people up and get them back together. It is just lazy writing in my opinion. I only laughed out loud two times because the comedy in the movie is not laugh out loud funny. It is "Oh that was very clever" funny and that isn't really a bad thing, it is just lacking that something that makes a smart comedy more than just smart comedy. the best smart comedies find a way to meld the snappy dialog with the broad stuff and this movie just is not there. Maybe some day the writer will get there but for now he is content to use clever to the best of his abilities.