Smart People
“Would you like to see my red wheelbarrow?”
[Warning: spoilicious. On the plus side, I wouldn’t advise seeing the movie, so you may proceed, or not, with that in mind.]
I enjoyed Smart People, in the sense that it held my interest, but it held my interest because I wanted to see where it would go…and then it didn’t go much of anywhere. It’s one of those movies that’s good during the movie, but afterwards it feels like a waste of time.
The acting is strong, which is good, because it has to carry characters who often seem underwritten and forced. Sarah Jessica Parker in particular has a tough time of it; while the initial character sketch of Lawrence Wetherhold, a professor gradually eroding into a hard, sandy lump of grouch, is enough for Dennis Quaid to go on for most of the movie, Parker’s Janet Hartigan seems to exist only as a foil for Wetherhold. All her actions have to pass through the lens of him, and it doesn’t make sense. Why does she agree to see him again, after the disastrous initial “conversation” in which she rips a strip off him for blathering for 45 minutes? Why is she going to New York with him after what seems like ten minutes of dating — and why is his behavior there enough, then, to turn her away? Because the script demands it, I suspect, and Parker does a good job trying to make it seem organic to the character; it’s not her fault, but in the end I don’t buy it. It’s not Quaid’s fault I don’t buy Wetherhold pining for her, either. It’s a structural issue. Alli is right that the movie shouldn’t have gone with a love story, because neither the chemistry nor the timing works.
Again, though, during the movie I still thought they could turn it around. Thomas Haden Church is playing a similar role to the one he played in Sideways, but he’s not lazy about it — it’s a different guy, surrounded by different people, and he comes to it as if it’s the first time. Ellen Page is more problematic, and might want to have a word with her agent about putting her up for roles outside the Pointedly Different/Quippy Hides The Hurt Girl niche, because I see a good actor in there, but all the Williamsburg-y signifiers she gets ladled over her passed their sell-by date about ten minutes into Juno (although I believe she shot this movie first). Page has a series of great non-“snarky tomboy” moments where she’s trying to get her father’s attention, knowing she’s going to fail, knowing it’s only going to earn her the contempt of her brother and herself, and the movie doesn’t stop to make sure you catch them, which is why they succeed.
But much of it doesn’t. The last ten minutes, oooooo-fah — Hartigan reveals that she’s pregnant, Wetherhold reveals that he loves her, he takes his late wife’s clothes to Goodwill, he’s teaching a class and learning his students’ names, aaaaaand credits. All better! Stay sweet, Kubler-Ross! …I’ve got nothing against a speedy denouement, but that had all the emotional credibility of an eighth-grade oral report. “And then he fell in love again which allowed him to reconnect with his family and himself and everyone lived happily ever after the end.” Here’s the thing: no.
And please excuse me for pointing this out, given that it’s exactly the sort of pompous “rather be right than happy” behavior the film implicitly condemns, but in a movie called SMART PEOPLE, you simply cannot have your English-professor protagonist rendering it “Fairie Queen“ in capital letters on the blackboard. Why is Wetherhold even teaching Spenser anyway? (Which would have been spelled “Spencer,” no doubt.) Isn’t his concentration the Victorian novel? It’s one thing if you draw attention to it as a sign that he’s checked out in the classroom, but if you don’t mention it, it means everyone on set thought it was correct. Everyone on the set of a movie…ABOUT AN ENGLISH PROFESSOR. Annoying!
Tags: movies our friend English
Fairie Queen: the finest Elizabethan sundaes you’ll ever taste.
I share your dismay, and am now glad I decided not to see the movie so I wouldn’t say “Hey!” in the theater at that point. It, uh, wouldn’t be the first time…
Now I really want an Elizabethan sundae….
(Okay. Any sundae, really.)
Don’t you mean “sundie”?
My reaction to this movie was, “I liked it, until the end. The ending was stupid.” So, yeah.
Hm, glad I didn’t bother seeing this movie.
I wouldn’t have caught the fairie queen, thing, b/c I’m a math person. Man, though. That is how I feel when I watch movies with math in them. Like at the beginning of ’21’ when he’s in class. His “explanation” was so dumbed down, but at the same time trying to sound smart. Argh.
You know that feeling you get when you hear your cat under the dining-room table horking up a hairball? Yeah. That’s how I feel when I see Dennis Quaid’s name attached to a movie. It may be unfair; it may even be mean. But…HOOORRRRRRK.
@Miss Twitch: HA! You KNOW that’s where that 50-something Peter Pan costume-wearing guy would eat.
Is that anything like “Carnie Queen”?
Back in the day I watched West Wing and one of my favorite characters was Toby. The speechwriter. Then he said imply instead of infer. Still disappointing all these years later.
“Sundie” is a little too much like “undie”. Just wrong.
I was really excited to see this movie, mostly because it was shot here in Pittsburgh, and I am a huge nerd when it comes to seeing my city on the big screen. So, for a lot of the movie, I was totally distracted by seeing familiar landmarks (the CMU scenes were shot right down the hall from my husband’s office; the house they lived in is, like, 5 minutes from my house, you guys! EEE!). (See? NERD.)
ANYWAY, I wasn’t expecting much from the movie, but even so I was disappointed. Quaid’s character reminded me a bit of Jeff Daniel’s character from The Squid and the Whale – self-righteous, self-absorbed – and that kind of behavior doesn’t just GO AWAY because you knocked up some lady you don’t seem to know at all (and hoo boy, you’re right Sars, NO chemistry between those two). I think the stakes needed to be higher throughout the whole thing. I liked the characters, but I almost felt like I’d caught them a few years too late – like they had been going through something much more interesting at some point in the past.
BUT: my friend played the waiter in the two restaurant scenes between Quaid & Parker – they cut off his head, but THAT WAS HIM! WOOO! (Nerd.)
jive turkey:
That’s how I feel about Urban Cowboy, which was entirely shot within a quarter-mile radius from my childhood home. Urban. Cowboy.
Yours is at least called ‘Smart People.’ Few enough people will see it that you don’t have to feel shame about your excitement. My excitement for the pile of idiot, white trash, shit-kicking, Gilly’s dancing, unscuffed naugahyde boot-wearing, pristine 4-wheel-drive SUV owning, suburbanite, Travolta and Winger sized pile of horse puckey that is Urban Cowboy will leave me shamed and misunderstood to the end of days. (No, but you guys, Charlie Heintschel, who is the ex-husband of one of our elementary teachers and whose family went on ski vacations with me when I was a kid and who played ‘Charlie’ still gets a five dollar residual check every time it plays on TNT. That’s awesome! Where are you going? That’s awesome, right? Guys?)
@EMR- You gave me a much needed laugh, their. Still, it would take a lot to dethrone Toby from my list of all-time-fave tv characters. ::sigh:: I loved that show.
I’m really sad after reading this review. I have the opposite reaction to Quaid that Jaybird does, in that a horribly girly part of me starts squealing when I see that he’s in a new movie. On the other hand, Parker makes me want to hurl. Thanks for the heads up, though, because I have very little money and many movies I want to see. I’ll move this to the DVD list.
Shoooooes, Megan, you go ahead and be proud of Urban Cowboy. My husband loves that movie. I cannot judge.
And yes, I think the $5 residual check is most awesome. Hee!
@FloridaErin: Eccchh, PARKER. I can’t believe I forgot to list her the first time around; her face makes me want to punch something. Namely, her face.
“… but it held my interest because I wanted to see where it would go…and then it didn’t go much of anywhere.”
Yes, exactly! This is what I found so frustrating about this movie. Except I’m not convinced I found it all that fun while I was in the midst of it, because the characters all behaved in such provokingly nonsensical ways. I was too busy thinking “What? Why? Why would anyone do that?” to enjoy myself all that much. And I wondered how much range Ellen Page really had, because I thought her character seemed awfully similar to June. Oddly, I hadn’t even seen Juno at that point. Also: “Fairie Queen”? Feh.