REEL CRITIC:
A smart look at a quirky family

By Jeff Klemzak

Published: Last Updated Tuesday, April 15, 2008 10:48 PM PDT

Cleverly written and performed by an excellent cast, “Smart People” is my favorite film released so far this year. I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. Presented as a comedy/drama, it is the story of a fractured family that is inches away from total dysfunction.

Several films in the past few years have dealt with the family in disarray, from the excellent “Wonderboys,” and more recently, “The Savages,” to disasters such as “Margot at the Wedding” and “The Family Stone.” “Smart People” is definitely one of the better films of that genre.

Dennis Quaid’s role as professor Lawrence Wetherhold is the prototype of the pompous jerk. In fact, it could conceivably be used as a template for future film jerks. He is rude, overbearing and unbelievably snide. His watery eyes take on a cruel, yet almost friendly twinkle as he is about to lower the boom on one of his hapless students. But his reputation aside, he is tenured, his esoteric subject matter (Victorian Lit) is required for an undergraduate degree in English, and so he stays on, despite the human wreckage left in his wake.

Ellen Page, the charming ingénue who wowed ’em recently with her work in the well received “Juno,” has once again turned in an excellent performance. She plays Vanessa, the professor’s daughter who has unfortunately taken on much of her father’s acerbic personality. She is snooty and condescendingly outspoken to her peers, and she has fallen to a level that denies her any friends.

Vanessa’s mother died a few years before, and she shares a rather unhealthy relationship with her father. She has taken on much of her mother’s household duties and takes no small amount of pleasure in driving away her father’s latest girlfriend, well played by a somewhat miscast Sarah Jessica Parker. When her dad challenges her unhappy life, she responds with, “Of course I’m unhappy. You are my role model.”

Thomas Haden Church, of “Sideways” fame, is the professor’s brother Chuck, a middle-aged ne’er-do-well and a lovable chiseler. When the prof suffers a head injury that necessitates the surrender of his driver’s license, Chuck moves in to his brother’s large home and takes on the role of chauffeur. It is Church’s role that is central to the story, and it is the role that really defines this film.

Chuck’s hang-loose ways and charming foolishness take much of the edge away from the father/daughter tension of the plot and replaces it with a kindness that is devoid of pedantic preaching. Chuck is the total antithesis of his brother. If anyone in this quirky household has anything to learn at all, it is funneled through Chuck, and the results are well received and never predictable.

“Smart People” is ably directed by Noam Murro, who seems to be well regarded despite his rather sketchy achievements in filmmaking so far. The same can be said for screenwriter Mark Poirier, who shows only a volume of short stories and a novel to his credit and a few gigs with Murro in the recent past. The acting here was superb, and much of that credit must go to the director. Many a bad movie over the years has been made with an excellent yet underachieving cast, and the director is usually the leading suspect.

If you enjoy this film only half as much as I did, you will get your money’s worth.

It’s rated R by the Motion Picture Assn. of America for language and drug use.

JEFF KLEMZAK of La Crescenta has whiled away many a leisurely afternoon in a darkened movie house. JEFF KLEMZAK of La Crescenta has whiled away many a leisurely afternoon in a darkened movie house.

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