After chatting with a friend and fellow movie buff, the film Smart People came into the conversation, and I must admit, I knew nothing about it—neither the names of the actors nor the plot. So, naturally, with my curiosity getting the better of me, I did a little research: I read the synopsis and looked at the list of characters. With a better understanding of what the movie was about, I was clearly surprised that I hadn’t heard about it sooner.
The plot of the movie revolves around Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) and his intelligent but rather socially defunct family. Wetherhold’s daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page) is an overachieving high school student who is following her father’s unhappy footsteps; his son James (Ashton Holmes) barely gives him any information on his studies; his adopted brother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) is a freeloader with no interest in what he believes to be the insipid day-to-day lifestyle of the family; and his wife has been dead for years.
To top it off, Wetherhold spends most of his waking hours obsessively teaching Victorian literature to his students, fighting with publishers in order to get his book published, and pushing to get elected as the head of the English department at Carnegie Mellon University. While many find Wetherhold to be one of modern day’s intellectual giants, they also find him an insufferable and pretentious snob. He hates all of his students, pays no interest to anything being said around him, and refuses to let any part of his life go out of control. However, when he meets former student Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), Wetherhold finally starts to loosen his grip on life and to pay attention to his surroundings. The professor ultimately undergoes a transformation from a miserable middle-aged man to a somewhat happier camper.
The movie itself brags an immensely talented cast of characters in a small budget of a mere $7 million (as compared to the blockbuster films with an all-star cast). Even with the size of the budget, the film does not lack quality. Quaid, Parker, Page, and Church perform their roles brilliantly, with each of the characters holding his or her own in Smart People.
Quaid does a good enough job playing his rather awkward intellectual character, but Parker falls a bit short in the matter. While it is easily understandable of Lawrence to act so peculiarly unhappy during the course of the film, we don’t really see why Parker’s character Hartigan is just as awkward and miserable. There is barely a glimpse of her personality, and as fabulous as she looks and acts the part, the mystery around her makes her seem like a closed book—through no fault of her own.
Church and Page ultimately stole the show away from the two aforementioned main characters. With his slightly sarcastic and to-the-point speech, Chuck brings out a comedic atmosphere when around his uptight Wetherhold family—and Church doesn’t fail to play the part. Page charms yet again, this time equipped with an overly developed vocabulary and a more mature attitude than the one she adopted in Juno. She delivered her lines with wit and ease, making her the true star of the movie.
The title was a perfect fit for the film. Smart People doesn’t just try to follow a cast of characters who are well above average intelligence—the script itself is inspiring and cleverly written (though I do wish that they had developed Janet Hartigan a bit more). We see the witty dialogue come up again as it did in Juno, though the lingo digs into a deeper vocabulary. The music itself matched the tone of the movie to a T. Even as the final lyrical phrases of “in pursuit of happiness” welcomed the ending credits, we all get that feeling that yes, like the rest of humanity, the “smart people” are just trying to find their happy place. Smart People leaves the audience with warm and fuzzy feelings after leaving the theatre.
