Watching Lawrence and Vanessa slowly become human beings makes for a pleasant enough time, although the scenes with Vanessa and Chuck, perhaps by design, have a lot more energy than the ones with Lawrence and Janet. Then again, some of the subplots are pretty funny, like Lawrence's quest to get his book published. Some kind of obnoxious critique on the modern literary world called You Can't Read, it finally finds a publisher who tells Lawrence he likes it because "people will love to hate you." Ironically, growing to like him is one of the chief pleasures of Smart People.

Movie Grade: B+

Synopsis:

Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) might be imperiously brilliant, monumentally self-possessed and an intellectual giant – but when it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he's as downright flummoxed as the next guy. His teenaged daughter (Ellen Page) is an acid-tongued overachiever who follows all too closely in dad's misery-loving footsteps, and his adopted, preposterously ne'er-do-well brother (Thomas Haden Church) has perfected the art of freeloading. A widower who can't seem to find passion in anything anymore, not even the Victorian Literature in which he's an expert, it seems Lawrence is sleepwalking through a very stunted middle age. When his brother shows up unexpectedly for an extended stay at just about the same time as he accidentally encounters his former student Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), the circumstances cause him to stir from his deep, deep freeze, with often comical, sometimes heartbreaking, consequences for himself and everyone around him.