Choosing today’s fractal proved surprisingly easy: I simply picked the one the exemplified the way I felt after watching the movie I will be reviewing. Thus I chose Gray Mood. That being said--on with today’s post!-
I always thought I was pretty smart. Anyone who reads this blog knows I may not be the most insightful individual and God knows my tastes are not the most refined. I thought Smart People looked like an interesting (but more importantly intelligent) comedy/love story. Either I’m not as smart as I thought or this movie isn’t all it claims to be.
-
Smart People is a gray, listless movie about a family of gray, listless, emotionally-stunted intellectuals. Patriarch Lawrence Wetherhold (played by Dennis Quaid looking puffy and generally out-of-sorts) is a world-weary English Professor who doesn’t like his job, his students or pretty much anyone but himself: he brings new meaning to the term “self-involved jerk“. His “adoptive’ brother Chuck (played by Thomas Haden Church who gleeful steals every scene he’s in) is a loser who hits Lawrence up for cash. Chuck ends up moving into his brother’s home to be a chauffeur and plot catalyst his brother has an accident. Orbiting this odd couple is Lawrence’s daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page who was nominated for an Oscar for her work in Juno: it’s a pretty safe bet to say she won’t be getting a nomination for this role.) Vanessa is an over-achiever and Lawrence’s de facto “wife“ who is almost her father‘s parent. Her brother James (Ashton Holmes) is an Art Major who doesn’t fit well with the rest of his family. Last is Dr. Janet Harrington (Sarah Jessica Parker--cute but pretty much as unlikeable as everyone else in this movie) is a former student of Professor Wetherhold’s who still has something of a school-girl crush. (He made her change her major from English to Pre-Med way back when and has become his Doctor after the accident.
-
The movie offers two inter-related stories--neither of which ring all that true. We get a true-ish portrait of University Academia (which really is a boring as it seems) as we see Lawrence slog through interviews for a promotion at work and struggles with getting his latest book published while half-heartedly courting the pretty doctor. Back home daughter resents pretty doctor for horning in on her territory (all the while plotting her “escape” to Stanford--far from Daddy and his problems.) Uncle Chuck tries to loosen her up--which doesn’t go well. The plot chugs along pretty much as you’d expect with surprisingly little character growth taking place.
-
Maybe I’m not as smart as I thought but I’d like a movie where I can actually LIKE at least one of the characters--and I’d dearly love to have a relationship I could root for. I never really bought into the Lawrence/Janet relationship or the Chuck/Vaness pairing--although I did want to reach through the screen and slap most ot the characters more than once. Smart People didn’t have much to redeem it--other than being nicely crafted. (I know this is a bad movie when even the Titian-haired everluscious Robyn can’t find something good to say about the movie.) I applaud Thomas Haden Chuch’s brave choice of face fur but there’s something sad when the biggest laugh of the movie is his flabby white butt hanging out of red Longjohns. Still, it was over a hundred degrees and we got to spend about three hours in air conditioned comfort so I guess it wasn’t completely bad.
-
FINAL GRAD: C-
No comments:
Post a Comment