Smart People

"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.

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.

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.

The anti-social and bitter widower Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is an egocentric and pompous man that is unpopular among his students and colleagues, and model for his teenager daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page), who is lonely and outcast in her school. His son James (Ashton Holmes) studies in the same college where he teaches and has little communication with his father. Lawrence is unsuccessfully trying to publish a provocative book and is disputing the position of Head of English Department, while Vanessa has applied to Stanford. When Lawrence has a serious concussion followed by seizure jumping a fence in a silly accident, Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker) does not allow him to drive for six months. Lawrence does not recognize Janet, who was his student and had a crush on him. Lawrence hires his unemployed stepbrother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) as his driver and he moves to Lawrence's house. Further, Lawrence dates Janet but he has not dated any woman since the death of his wife, and his dinner completely fails. However, Janet and Chuck change the behavior of Lawrence and he discovers that even smart people need to learn and move on.

The dramatic "Smart People" is a nice romance with realistic characters and sitcoms. The viewer that watches this movie expecting a silly comedy or a conventional romantic comedy misguided by the trailer may be disappointed with the witty lines related to relationship, instead of empty jokes. Dennis Quaid, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church and Sarah Jessica Parker are perfectly cast for their roles and their performances of human characters are fantastic. Wait for the credits to see pictures with the conclusion of the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Vivendo e Aprendendo" ("Living and Learning")

Not for your average movie-goer, this one. Although the situation is teed up nicely for a typical feel-good ensemble gush-fest, it resists that temptation and takes you to a place where the characters are not, although they seem to need it, ready for rehab. It has an easy, rambling style that gradually rather than gratuitously opens their world to us without (for the most part) overly relying on hackneyed situations and gimmicks (although Quaid's insistence on keeping his wifes clothing was not one of them). In fact, the situations portrayed are so dark and lo- keyed that I wondered if this movie could have been made without the ready-made typecast qualities of Quaid, Haden-Church and Parker. ...Gritty Pittsburgh backdrop in a very real academic surrounding adds to the slice-of-life tone.