INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Smart People

Two stars (R) 

Smart People is a dour comedy about a dysfunctional family, aimed, I think, at the Little Miss Sunshine crowd. Despite its flaws and contrivances, Little Miss Sunshine fell together in a satisfying fashion. Smart People easily matches it in the flaws and contrivances department, but the payoffs are smaller and farther in-between.

About that title. The characters in question here think that being smart means that they are wiser and more evolved than most people. When I was very little, my parents and other grown-ups in the family praised me on a regular basis for being so smart. I foolishly believed them and, hoo boy, did that ever result in a world of hurt. Trust me, if you’re the parent of a bright kid, for God’s sake, don’t gush about it.

Dennis Quaid plays Lawrence Wetherhold, a widowed English lit professor at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. Poor Dennis — he used to be the picture of vitality and now he looks alarmingly haggard. Apparently the filmmakers didn’t think that his weathered features were enough, however, because they strap something around his waist under his shirt to make it look like he has a sagging belly. Unconvincing.

A lot of Smart People is unconvincing. Director Noam Murro, working from Mark Jude Poirier’s screenplay, gives us stiff characters mouthing stilted dialogue. I didn’t buy much of it. Especially Dennis Quaid as a professor. Whenever he starts talking about English lit, he sounds like a Martian that learned the words phonetically. Yes, I know he’s shooting for “disaffected,” but he only manages to hit “wooden.” Juno star Ellen Page plays his angry, wisecracking daughter, Vanessa, and while she tears off a number of good lines, her character seems more like a writer’s contrivance than a real girl in pain.

The story: Bitter, mean old professor Wetherhold can’t drive for six weeks due to a seizure, allowing his ne’er-do-well adopted brother Chuck (Thomas Hayden Church) to wheedle his way into the house as chauffeur. A terribly awkward (and not very convincing) romance develops between the professor and Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker) while Uncle Chuck and Vanessa gradually get friendly (too friendly in a creepy barroom scene where a buzzed Vanessa hits on Chuck because, hey, he was adopted so it’s not incest).

Ashton Holmes plays Vanessa’s brother James, but I’m only mentioning him to be polite, as he’s out of the picture most of the time. Oh, and how nice to see David Denman — Roy from The Office — contribute a charming supporting performance as an E.R. staffer. The saving grace of the film is Thomas Haden Church as Chuck. The Sideways star isn’t tested here; as a laid-back goof, he could do the role in his sleep. Regardless, he is credible and funny and generally likable.

A final complaint. Former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt does the score for the movie, slathering the film with the kind of folksy soft rock that you generally hear in a coffee commercial. Thirty seconds of that is annoying. Ninety-five minutes of that is grounds for violence.

Bottom line: Smart People is watchable, largely due to Thomas Haden Church, but why? If you want a downbeat comedy with a quirky family, rent The Upside of Anger. Or organize a family reunion, because most families have at least one movie’s worth of weirdness in them. Maybe even a franchise.