Info
The opinions, comments and viewpoints expressed in articles are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the webmaster.
All press articles are still under copyright from the original source and provided for entertainment purposes and research only. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
|
by Molly Celaschi, published on April 11th, 2008 I’m glad to report that the movie Smart People is a lot better than it’s poster and trailer give it credit for. I was almost annoyed by the casting choices off the bat and the poster sporting two very fake-haired leading men made me groan. And thankfully the film has more laughs than the trailer did. Of course that could just be the smart person in me talking as I heard many a grumbling from various other critics in the theater. Some complained that Ellen Page was annoying, Dennis Quaid cannot pull off an indie film, and Sarah Jessica Parker was unbelievable as the doctor. But I disagree for the most part. Dennis Quaid plays pompous professor who changes his clock time to avoid talking to students and needs nametags to remember them. After a funny incident where he suffers a concussion, he meets pretty Sarah Jessica Parker as his ER doctor. She also happens to be a former student, harboring a crush and a grudge, he cannot remember. When Quaid’s loser adopted brother Thomas Hayden Church shows up unannounced, he is “hired” as his chauffeur and unintentionally lends a hand in developing Quaid’s new romance with Parker and embracing his distant son and extremely unhappy overachiever daughter (Ellen Page). While I dig the snappy dialogue and smart-speak, the film is more than just that. It is about lonely people who still feel empty when their lives are filled with so much success. They are so much better than everyone else around them and yet they remain unhappy. Quaid cannot even sit in the passenger seat of a car because his deceased wife used to drive him around. He is completely self-absorbed and doesn’t listen to his daughter talk about her perfect SAT score or his son’s poetry achievements. Quaid even fails in keeping a date interested because he cannot even manage to talk about anything other than himself. Ellen Page is pretty much like her JUNO character here except a little meaner and lonelier. Page nonchalantly donates her dead mother’s clothes for a tax write off and Quaid promptly buys them all back. But poor Page is more broken than her outward appearance hints at. She is so socially confused that she resorts to throwing herself at her adopted uncle twice her age. Sarah Jessica Parker avoids the flightiness of her Sex & The City character Carrie Bradshaw and surprisingly is able to pull off the smart doctor role. Instead of Carrie’s neediness, Parker devises a plan to push a man she cares about out of her bed in the middle of the night. She stops seeing him when she realizes she may be in love with Quaid and on the road to a more serious relationship. And of course Thomas Hayden Church nearly steals the show with his man-child demeanor and bare-assed stoner mentoring. The best scene is when Juno, I mean, Page is trying to study and her uncle convinces her to smoke pot for the first time by speaking to her in Spanish. This leads to obligatory tela novela watching of course. While the film is thoroughly enjoyable, it is not perfect. I would have liked Page’s character to have some kind of revelation. She was the only one that needed to learn something, but really didn’t. I was waiting for the emotional breakdown to come at the end. Considering the tagline is “the smartest people have the most to learn” that was a bit of a letdown. The film will be best enjoyed by fans of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS or WONDER BOYS. This is the anti-LITLLE MISS SUNSHINE. Stupid people beware. Favorite Line: “If you tell people they are stupid, they usually hate you.” Rating: 8/10 Source: www.2snaps.tv |
Printerfriendly version · Read 304 times
Powered by Silver News 2.0.4
Last Update: 09/02/2010
© 2006-2010 Dominik Keppner
© 2006-2010 Dominik Keppner
