New on DVD: Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page in “Smart People”

By Andy Hunsaker, Fancast Movies

When exactly did Dennis Quaid become irritating? I’m trying to figure this out. I used to really like the guy, especially since Innerspace was such an important movie to me while growing up. I haven’t seen him in all that much since, but the first time I can recall finding him aggravating was his bad mumbly gravel pirate voice he did in Dragonheart. The only thing that’s changed in his vocal quality for Smart People is that he’s not trying to do an accent of any sort.

In this, he’s playing Professor Lawrence Wetherhold, an arrogant widower teaching at Carnegie-Mellon and wallowing in contempt for the world. He has a rebellious poet son named James (Ashton Holmes) and an overachieving young Republican daughter (Ellen Page). When his adopted brother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) shows up in need of money, then moves in to become Lawrence’s driver after a trauma-induced seizure puts him on restriction, more conflict begins to arise, and we wind up seeing more of Church’s tuchus than we ever thought possible. The doctor treating that seizure turns out to be an ex-student of his (Sarah Jessica Parker) who had a crush on him back then, and it turns out to be a bumpy journey towards Lawrence coming out of his own head and back into the world at large.

Quaid is supposed to be a pompous asshole in this film, but he lacks even the glimmer of the charisma that’s needed to make us believe Parker would still be interested in him, although the fact that Parker hasn’t had any charisma since L.A. Story might render this unnecessary anyway. This is balanced out, however, by the vagabond Chuck showing up to be the foil for not only his adoptive brother, but as a corrupter to his completely repressed and refusing-to-admit-it niece. It’s almost eerie how Page can take the swaggering snark of Juno being pretentious and snotty about Iggy Pop to make it fit into being pretentious and snotty about C students. It makes her character a little hard to buy with Juno so fresh in mind, and casts a little bit of doubt about the extent of Page’s true acting range, as adorable as she is, but once again, her constant condescension is the true comedy of the film, along with Church’s incredulity at how his brother’s family works.

The point director Noam Murro makes with his title is that smart people can fuck things up just as badly as dumb people. It’s an interesting premise to work with,and there’s some fun to be had here. In fact, people coming out of the theater were suggesting that Church has an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in his future. Me, I’m not so sure if the complete lack of chemistry between Quaid and Parker can be ignored enough to make that happen.