"Smart People" (2008) - Movie Review

“Smart People” survives on lull moments and dull damaged characters. Dennis Quaid’s Lawrence Wetherhold, a self declared bloated with language and condescending intellectual reminds of Bernard Berkman from “The Squid and the Whale” (Hey, both have beards too!). He has a daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page), a young female version of himself. A go getter and a convinced believer that she and her dad are the best damn elite people deserving everything. “Smart People” is not the catharsis of these estranged and dysfunctional personalities we have seen in many independent films but the realization of their problems which is reasonable and it works.

Lawrence a widower and a jerk is getting old and hardly have consideration for the people around him and their names. He is an English professor who has tasted more rejection in attempt of publishing his book. Added to that is the loss of his lovely wife and a long lasting smugness to make him one self pitied schmuck. He is not yet realized that he is been hated by every one because he is one such than that their intellectual quotient is negligible. Situation arises to make him dependent on his adopted brother (which he stresses) Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), a middle aged bum skipping home businesses as the main business. He meets a former student as his ER doctor, Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker) of course he does not remember but sees an option for a change in his life.

Is city suburbs filled with dysfunctional family or is it the nonacceptance of the abnormality every one practice in their privacy? The little irritations and the uncomfortable physical contact in a queue or even with their own family are pondering factors for an independent film. Director Noam Murro does not handle it wrong in overdoing it nor does he repeats the formula independent film has succumbed to. It is a truthful attempt which has a low key in its character and makes us care for them.

The comedy is the pathetic smile we get on the clueless complacent characters. Ellen Page’s Vanessa reminds one more person of such character in another film. Reese Witherspoon’s Tracy Flick in “Election” is that and whiles the ambitious go getter is common, there is a human substance in Vanessa. She has missed almost her entire adolescence in the hope of becoming a miniature Lawrence. She yearns for his approval and rightly gets it too but the problems arise when he has another person to concentrate.

There is a son in this mid life crisis, Paul (Chris Klein) having contempt on not getting dad’s recognition. His relationship with Lawrence though is much left to be evaporated as he has moved on from those years. But for Vanessa her life is what she has seen in her dad. And when he has some one else to spend time with, she is broken. Chuck loosens her up but with a consequence. Page again plays a character too mature for her age but handles it with an acting maturity. She never gets herself over the top of the character. Church and Quaid are the veterans out here who have their part to be the strange losers. Their scenes together are intentionally underrated as their relationship.

Essentially the film is about Vanessa and Lawrence dealing with their personality issues. One has crossed the point of control in his adult life and another is starting to follow the same path. Success, title and recognition drives these two people but rejection does not discourage them rather give themselves more reasons to be intelligently separated from rest of the society. They both get an outsider not enlightening by their words but giving rejection to think about. In the process we know the outsiders are equally lost but they are aware of their situation.

It is not a wholesome film because the characters are not wholesome. And it does not provide the character change some might want and expect. But a person like Lawrence does not change over a period of weeks. The film is the first step on their overcoming their self denial on their addiction to intellectualism. It is a slow process and the film is slow for its hour and half. Yet amongst its faint and fading tone of reality, “Smart People” has the heart, originality and the integrity to have their characters stay to their characters till the end. The difference in our mood from beginning and end is the hope we get out of the people.