With that in mind, it’s no surprise that Dennis Quaid would jump at the chance to put his middle-aged swarthiness to work in Smart People. Quaid plays Lawrence Wetherhold, a widowed English professor with a permanent scowl. He doesn’t really care about his students, and has them wear name tags to alleviate the aggravation of having to learn their names, doesn’t respect his colleagues and doesn’t releate well to his two children (Ellen Page and Ashton Holmes), dislikes his brother Chuck (Thomas Hayden Church) whom he insists on describing with the adjective “adopted,” and treats anyone he comes in contact with as if they were inferior. As a member of the search committee to find a new head of the Carnegie Mellon English department where he works, Lawrence declares he wants the job, but hasn’t attended department meetings for the past several years. He has also been working on a book that he considers his life’s work, for so long that has been rejected by so many publishers that he’s really on a train to nowhere, despite his ego. We’re led to believe that what’s partly to blame is the loss of his wife, whose clothing he insists on keeping in the closet, though it’s been years since her death.
Chuck goes in and out of his brother’s life, and tends to come around when he needs money. This time Chuck’s appearance is perfect, because Lawrence needs a chauffeur after a head injury triggers a seizure which results in him not being able to drive for six months. Lawrence parks across two spaces gets his car towed and another former student won’t let him in the impound lot to get it. While climbing over the fence to get it himself, the professor falls and ends up in the emergency room where another former student is the attending physician.
Somehow, Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker) gets over her distaste for her former professor and agrees to go out on a date with him. They have a rocky start to the relationship, but they eventually settle into a comfortable routine. The biggest problem is that Dwnnis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker have little to know chemistry together. The twosome generate so little heat, they simply aren’t believable as a couple.
When Chuck became Lawrence’s chauffeur, I was expecting more humor out of that situation. Instead, director Noam Murro decided to go off in a totally different, somewhat disturbing, direction. The plot does a bit of a shift and focuses on Chuck’s attempts to bond with Vanessa. He gets the underage girl to smoke pot with him and takes her to a bar and buys a pitcher to share with her, and they make a trip to Goodwill together.
All of these events just serve to show how weak the plot and subplot of Smart People really is. The son who’s in college is off camera so much that we even forget he’s a student at the same university where his father teaches. In the end Smart People comes across as underdeveloped, and I’d have to recommend Wonder Boys as a better example of dealing with disappointment and the academic life.
Smart People is presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio and “enhanced” for 16×9 televisions. The audio is a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround with French and Spanish subtitles.
Movie goers will appreciate a coupon good for a free movie ticket to see Blindness from 8-12 through 10-31. The disc includes a 16-minute rundown on the project and individual characters, with the writer, director, and appropriate cast member talking about each character. There are nine deleted scenes, a gag reel, and a fairly dry audio commentary by the film’s director and screenwriter.
