Smart People

Check listings for details

Although the tone is mostly serious, Noam Murro’s first independent feature film, Smart People, combines many elements of romantic comedy, deadpan and dark humour. It’s the story of depressed widower and Carnegie Melon English professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) overcoming emotional issues that have been buried under a thick academic carapace.
Smart People is the screenwriting debut for accomplished novelist Mark Poirier. The dialogue has intelligent interchanges, particularly between Lawrence (Quaid) and Vanessa (Ellen Page). In fact, the casting of the characters is one of the film’s most convincing aspects. Page, fresh from her acclaimed turn in Juno, fits into her bookish, right-wing, high-school model-UNer role very comfortably. Thomas Haden Church’s scam-artist, goofball character, Chuck Wetherhold, delivers most of the film’s physical humour and dime-store wisdom, reminiscent of his role as the airport mechanic on the sitcom Wings. Similarly, Sarah Jessica Parker’s character is a strong, independent and successful ER physician — only one degree of separation from Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. In fact, the casting of the secondary characters may seem almost too deliberate an attempt to short circuit conventional character introduction and development.
Denis Quaid, on the other hand, seizes the opportunity to shed his usual role as a heroic family man to explore a much more complex and vulnerable character. He commands the spotlight for the lion’s share of the film — and it is better off for it.
Although it never picks up steam, Smart People delivers as an upper-middle-class American family portrait and an easygoing love story. Throughout the film, the main plot elements are realistic and comfortable, but therein lies one of the criticisms — the story arc lacks excitement. The smart people are easy to identify with, but a bit forgettable.