Not being the smartest person in the world has its advantages. After all, you don't need to prove your level of intelligence by having every fact at your instant disposal. For instance, I remember hearing that humans don't use all of their brain capacity in everyday life, but I don't recall the exact figures.
Of course, it doesn't really matter -- except, I suppose, to some intellectual snobs -- and I can't seem to remember whether studies were done regarding what percentage of brains smart people use on a daily basis vs. the rest of the regular folk. Having gone to college with a bunch of the former, however, I can say that for whatever increased book smarts some of them have, they lack the same in street smarts and/or social skills.
Director Noam Murro and screenwriter Mark Poirier explore various aspects of just that in the appropriately titled "Smart People." It's an observational dramedy about intellectual elitism and the effect that has on such individuals, as well as those around them via "trickle downism" (I made that up just to irritate the grammar snobs out there).
In it, a somewhat miscast Dennis Quaid plays an English lit professor at Carnegie Mellon who's so full of himself that he doesn't know any of his students' names nor remember the faces of anyone who previously took any of his classes. Whether his wife conveniently kicked the bucket in the past due to his behavior or he turned into a misanthrope due to her untimely demise doesn't really make any difference at this point.
In short, he isn't happy and that's affected his kids. The oldest (played by Ashton Holmes in a part that's otherwise mostly nonexistent) attends college where his dad teaches, but is never happy to see him. His younger sister (Ellen Page, doing just a variation of her "Juno" bit she does so well) is still in high school, but has inherited his snobby elitism and is in full cram mode to ace her SATs.
Yes, they're the standard dysfunctional movie family, and to stoke their flames of familial discontent, the filmmakers introduce the black sheep, an adoptive uncle played by Thomas Hayden Church (like Page, doing a variation of his usual type, the down-and-out but wise "loser" character). He's a freeloader working on his latest business scheme and since he isn't biologically related to the rest, he isn't cursed with their unhappiness and/or need for book smarts. What he provides, however, in true movie fashion, is the catalyst to shake them out of their self-imposed intellectual rut.
While the son gets little to no such attention (since he's basically a superfluous character), the uptight and friendless daughter is given pot to smoke and beer to drink, although her liberation under the latter's effect results in her coming on to her uncle, leaving him understandably uneasy.
For the dad, it's the push to return to the dating scene and in particular an emergency room nurse (Sarah Jessica Parker in a severely underwritten role that does her little favors) who treated him after a bump to the head. She's one of his former students he doesn't remember, and try as they might (and despite ending up between the sheets), the sparks don't fly in the right way.
Which pretty much sums up the overall film. While the script spots dialogue brimming with intellectual wordplay (although that diminishes as the plot progresses), it isn't quite as smart and certainly isn't as fun as many might be expecting. And with Church and Page embodying characters too similar to those they've played before, and Parker doing her "Sex and the City" thing but without the charm, that pretty much leaves Quaid to wow us.
Alas, and despite the setup, his character is missing the sort of tangible element that would make him pop off the screen. Even loathsome characters can be fun to watch, but despite various accompanying tics and such, Quaid's is simply present and not much more.
Certainly not horrible, the film isn't fun, clever, amusing or insightful enough to make us care about the characters, the type of which we've seen before and pretty much know exactly where they're headed. And it won't take being a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to figure that out. "Smart People" rates as a 4.5 out of 10.
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