Vivendo e Aprendendo

Smart People - Smart People had a 46% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it's far better than that. Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennie Quaid) is a "holier than thou" widowed professor you unfortunately meet once in awhile. He's the sort who's deeply invested in his subject but can neither make it accessible nor allow the students any time to discuss it. He's a brilliant asshole essentially. He meets a physician in a hospital after a head injury and begins to reevaluate his life and his happiness. He has a dead-beat brother-in-law (Thomas Haden Church who steals every scene he's in), a daughter (Ellen Page) who is a young Ann Coulter in the making, and a son (Ashton Holmes) to whom he never talks.

This film is quite funny! Page and Church were definitely the stand-outs, but I appreciated Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker, two actors who I rarely ever have liked. It deals with a couple familiar rom-com problems (pregnancy, the "other woman" thing), but the film never feels overly sentimental or cliché. It's satisfying watching Quaid's character get some richly deserved socks to the stomach once in awhile, but you're with him anyway by the end. The humor is a little on the biting cold side, which goes well with my tastes, maybe not with some. Smart People overstays it's welcome a bit near the end, but a good movie overall.

B.

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.

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")

"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.

Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) might be imperiously brilliant, monumentally self-possessed and an intellectual giant -- but when it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he's as downright flummoxed as the next guy. His teenaged daughter (Ellen Page) is an acid-tongued overachiever who follows all too closely in dad's misery-loving footsteps, and his adopted, preposterously ne'er-do-well brother (Thomas Haden Church) has perfected the art of freeloading. A widower who can't seem to find passion in anything anymore, not even the Victorian Literature in which he's an expert, it seems Lawrence is sleepwalking through a very stunted middle age. When his brother shows up unexpectedly for an extended stay at just about the same time as he accidentally encounters his former student Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), the circumstances cause him to stir from his deep, deep freeze, with often comical, sometimes heartbreaking, consequences for himself and everyone around him. Smart People 10/10