Spring Break
Page shines, co-stars falter in 'Smart People'
One-dimensional caricatures, lackluster plotline sink aimless novel-turned-movie
Ellen Meder
Staff Writer
Issue date: 4/15/08 Section: The Mix
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For a film that explores the balance between the social norms of fun and happiness and "cerebral fun," "Smart People" provides neither, particularly not the latter.
With half-baked, disjointed plot lines and no overriding theme or purpose, it is no wonder that Miramax's latest film, written by Mark Poirier and directed by Noam Murro, did not receive positive feedback when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.
The events of the movie revolve around widower Lawrence Wetherhold, a crotchety curmudgeon of a Carnegie Melon professor, played by Dennis Quaid. Wetherhold and his uptight, overachieving, intellectual snob of a seventeen-year-old daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page), are in a miserable, self-pitying rut when his deadbeat adopted brother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) arrives to beg for handouts.
Enter love interest: Sarah Jessica Parker playing a doctor and former student with the residual effects of an unrequited schoolgirl crush on Professor Wetherhold. Add in a brooding college freshman son with resentment, and you have all the human interaction Lawrence Wetherhold can handle.
With an all-star cast, it is amazing how flat and empty this movie comes off. Quaid is not convincing at all as a grieving husband and seems to provide no depth or motive for his mean-spirited and asinine disregard for the people around him.
It is nice to see Parker a little more laid back for once, but she still brings an awkwardness to her character's dealings with men, which is uncomfortable and unrelatable. The relationship between the two characters is so contrived, implausible and lacking in any real emotion or even attraction that it is difficult to differentiate which is more repulsive: the couple or watching Dennis Quaid boorishly eat Sarah Jessica Parker's face.
Other relationships fail to resemble reality as well. The should-be foil pair of Uncle Chuck and Vanessa makes no sense. Chuck tries to loosen up the driven teen's android ways with pot and alcohol, to which she gives surprisingly little protest despite her Ronald Reagan-loving conservative ways.
Add a little near-incest drunken kissing and discussions of the tax write-off potential of the deceased mother's clothing, and the connection seems nearly worthless for the overall effect of the movie.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Jamie
posted 4/15/08 @ 1:16 AM EST
Thomas Haden Church's character may have been a caricature, but he was the only reason I didn't fall asleep watching this movie!
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