Una familia genial

An indie comedy about a quirky family of self-hating misfits. We've seen this before, am I right? Well, so what, I say. When it's done well, I don't care too much whether the concept has been done before. And Smart People is done quite well. Dennis Quaid stars as a college professor and widower who hasn't been out with a woman since his wife died an unspecified (but long) amount of time ago. He lives alone with his daughter (Ellen Page). He has a son who goes to the same college at which he teaches and an adopted brother (Thomas Haden Church) who likes to mooch off of him. After an accident, Church moves in with Quaid and Page. Quaid also meets a former student (Sarah Jessica Parker), now a doctor, who had a crush on him. They start to date. The plot isn't anything special, but the dialogue is witty and the relationships are well observed. And this is also a case of fine actors who make something merely serviceable into something special. Quaid has never been better. My feeling about his work as an actor is that he is very uneven. He can be excellent, such as in The Right Stuff, but usually he's adequate, and often, perhaps too often, he's awful. But this is definitely one of the excellent performances. Church has kind of a sitcommy role, but that's fitting for an actor who was really good in sitcoms. He's hilarious here, too. A lot of the time, I was thinking of the movie as somewhat akin to a sitcom, but a good sitcom. There have been such things, you know. Page, fresh off her star-making turn as Juno (though Smart People was filmed earlier), is an actress I've liked in a couple of movies I disliked (Juno and Hard Candy). Finally, a movie with her that I actually like! Feels good. And she's great in it. The character is similar to Juno, but not quite so despicably precious. I like how the writer and director invite the audience to dislike all four of the major characters, at least a bit. They are recognizable people, which is, unfortunately, a rarity in movies. I liked the movie, and recommend it.

"These children haven't been properly parented in many years. They're practically feral. That's why I was brought in." Chuck Wetherhold (Thomas Haden Church)

I know smart. My college-professor colleagues are smart, with the usual trade off of occasional neuroticism. My kids are smart, with the usual emotional distance and independence that accompany eccentricity. So Noam Murro's Smart People, about a widower professor of literature, and his brainy family initially put me off with its dysfunctional crew, but as I slowly gave myself to the cynicism and inhumanity, I realized this crazy world was one I know well, and well is it depicted in its humor and pathos.

Although Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is tenured at Carnegie Mellon and on the brink of having a book accepted for publication, he is surly to everyone else, even his young students and his feckless adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), and unhappy with himself, in large part, it would seem, because of the untimely death of his talented wife that allows him to wallow unchecked in self pity. Quaid's interpretation borders on annoying, so unremittingly curmudgeonly does he play it.

Former student and head of ER at a local hospital, Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), has the potential to pull him out of his funk if his devoted, brilliant, and acerbic daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page) can't. Why Hartigan is attracted to him is never established, and why Parker would accept such a thankless, underdeveloped role is a mystery.

This anti-Little Miss Sunshine and close relative to Royal Tenenbaums beats all quirky family comedy/dramas for pure cynicism. However, that very dark tone throughout, even down to the somewhat contrived denouement, is the film's strength. The reality is that depressed, smart people don't immediately change; they slowly if at all join the brotherhood of man by accepting our faults, as simple as upgrading worthy student papers or asking personal questions of those students or a date.

Noah Baumbach needn't fear: Smart People is nowhere near as smart or glib as Squid and the Whale and Life Aquatic, but it brings a new dimension to the quirky family genre: honesty and gloom that translate into an enjoyable date with a dysfunctional family that's a lot like our arguably functional ones.

This film is about a smart college professor who has no clue about dating or caring for his family.

I hoped "Smart People" to be funny and entertaining, but unfortunately it was boring. Lawrence's inability to charm women is not entertaining or interesting. I find the story rather poorly developed, especially the relationship between Lawrence and Janet. The difference between their first date and the second date is so contrived and unconvincing. There is no reason to believe that Lawrence has improved so much after just a few words of advice. The relationship between Lawrence and his family is not engaging either. The characters are so hollow and unlikeable, and they are only there to deliver lines. It is a good cast completely wasted. I am disappointed by this film.

A low-budget comedy/drama set in and around the city of Pittsburgh, "Smart People" is so muted and laidback in its demeanor and tone that it practically borders on the innocuous. Yet, it is just that seeming banality that makes the movie work in the long run.

A pot-bellied Dennis Quaid plays a snarling, insensitive English Literature professor who's pretty much gone to seed in both his personal and professional life, a character not too far removed from the one played by Michael Caine in "Educating Rita." Lawrence Wetherhold is still so devastated by the death of his wife that he keeps all her clothes hanging in the bedroom closet as a sort of unholy shrine to the dearly departed woman. Needless to say, Lawrence hasn't made any great strides moving on with his life - until, that is, he strikes up a tentative romance with a physician and former student of his (Sarah Jessica Parker) who helps him to begin that too long delayed process of reconnecting himself to the world.

There's nothing particularly original or earth-shattering in this umpteenth tale of a burnt-out teacher finding a renewal of commitment and purpose in his profession, but writer Mark Poirier has provided enough in the way of ancillary details of character and plotting to at least keep matters interesting.

Ellen Page, for instance, plays Lawrence's overly possessive daughter, Vanessa, a college-bound Young Republican who's more obsessed with earning a perfect score on her SATs than with establishing meaningful friendships with people her own age. Thomas Hayden Church portrays her adoptive Uncle Chuck, a black sheep wastrel who, in point of contrast, makes even Lawrence look like a paragon of togetherness and success. Yet, despite his own troubles and failings, Chuck is the one who tries to get his niece to loosen up a bit and finally start enjoying life.

Together these characters drift through life, making wry observations on their situations and relationships on their way to a happy ending.

There may be a few too many musical montage sequences for the movie's own good, but the expository scenes, as directed by Noam Murro and performed by the actors, nicely capture the unhurried rhythms and simple ironies of everyday life.

I've just seen this film and read a number of reviews about it. Many reviewers are referencing 'Little Miss Sunshine', 'The Family Stone', etc. But I left the theatre thinking of the wonderful, beautifully balanced and developed, fun film, 'The Accidental Tourist'--another film about an emotionally deadened, difficult man who is suffering from the loss of a loved one and is 'redeemed' through love. Talk about quirky families; the one in 'Tourist' puts most of the rest to shame. The difference perhaps in the quality of these films (Tourist very high, Smart People quite low, many others in the 'genre' somewhere inbetween) lies in that The Accidental Tourist was based on the highly crafted, moving novel of the same title by the gifted writer Anne Tyler. What stands out for me again and again as I work up my courage to attend recent releases is that the quality of screenplay writing in Hollywood and elsewhere is low, low, low. Rushed, pressured, unbaked--too many films being made too fast, with scripts that bore and confuse us with unconvincing plots and thin characters. This film, Smart People, could have been--with revision and review--a much better, more engaging, moving picture. The script simply wasn't ready for production; the story isn't there.