Smart People

There is a joke in here somewhere about the smart people being the ones who buy tickets to another movie, but do I really want to go there? I guess I just did. I can’t help myself.

Dennis Quaid stars as Professor Lawrence Wetherhold – a miserable guy going through a miserable time. He can’t sell his latest book idea. He hates his students. He still suffers from the loss of his wife, and he has been banned by Dr. Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker) from driving for 6 months due to an accident. Even worse, his freewheeling, and, some might say, freeloading adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), has shown up looking for a cheap place to live.

Will these two adopted brothers be able to help each other?

What impact will all of this have on Lawrence’s kids, James (Ashton Holmes) and Vanessa (Ellen Page)?

What’s the point?

Smart People is one of those character studies that makes you wonder what you are supposed to learn about these characters, and if they are going to learn anything about themselves. In the end, you have to wade through too much muck to find the treasures in Smart People.

Quaid is good as the pompous ass professor, but he suffers from a lack of details in the script. We know he is a widower, but for how long? How did he lose his wife? What role did she play in his life? The life of the entire family? What is the history between Chuck and Lawrence? All of these details would help make the developments in the story have more impact on the audience. We need the context to help judge if his reactions are reasonable or signals of being irrational, but don’t get it.

Also, we understand Lawrence is not the best guy out there, but the audience needs to see him acting badly more often, which would make the movie funnier as well as making the point about how his life has spiraled out of control. Writer Mark Poirier and director Noam Murro make the professor into more of a sad sack than a tough guy who elicits anger from people. Throughout the film, we are shown student after student who is offended because Lawrence doesn’t remember their name. This is the worst thing a professor can do when he has hundreds of students a year? Maybe these people need to grow up, or Poirier and Murro need to work harder on expanding Lawrence’s personality and characteristics.

Murro and Poirier also need to figure out where to focus the movie because some portions are compelling, while the rest are dull. They present a badly developed story about the relationship between Lawrence and his son that is so worthless they should have just cut out the son altogether, since it makes no impact on the movie whatsoever. The relationship between father and daughter isn’t much better as we don’t get enough background to make their growing estrangement sad enough or cause any concern among the audience.

Poirier ends up giving the best lines to Page and Church, mostly because they know how to deliver them, and we understand their characters better. I’d rather see more of them than Quaid and Parker, since Chuck and Vanessa have a much more interesting and heartbreaking story than Hartigan and Lawrence who are playing out the overplayed, typical tale of a widowed spouse trying to move on with life.

Smart People has a good cast, but a bad script.

Smart People is rated R for language, brief teen drug and alcohol use and for some sexuality.