From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

'Smart People': A smart look at humanity

By Emily Torres
Miami Lakes Educational Center

April 10 2008

Smart People is not a movie for the simple-minded; it deals with real life problems that everyone must go through in their pursuit of happiness. Even if you never get close to complete happiness, it's nice to know that family will always be there. In Smart People, family is the key ingredient to a happy life.

Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is an arrogant, pompous college professor at the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University who is wrapped up in his own life. He is dying to become head of his department while working on getting his mind-numbing book published.

After his wife died nine years before, Lawrence was never the same and lost the twinkle in his eye. He began to ignore his daughter Vanessa, (Ellen Page), who studies until the wee hours of the morning for that perfect SAT score. His son, James (Ashton Holmes), is the black sheep of the family until Lawrence finds out that he's an excellent poet who finally sells one of his pieces to the New York Times.

All is normal in the Wetherhold family until Lawrence gets his car towed. As he tries to take his suitcase out of his car he climbs over a fence and falls to the ground. He suffers a trauma induced seizure that lands him in the hospital. There he meets Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), an old student and his physician, who tells him that he can't drive because of the seizure and has to take it easy. Not knowing what to expect, I am surprised with how well this movie turned out.

Throughout the movie, you become a bit confused with what's going on and who's who but you eventually figure it out and enjoy the remainder of the film. The acting was great and the emotion sincere. Dennis Quaid usually does a good job in all his movies, The Rookie, The Day After Tomorrow and Vantage Point, and this time was no different.

The movie was well acted, well thought out and was very smart in the way it was directed. The language was quick, witty and dry while the events portrayed the way the characters were feeling. Smart People gave a sense of how regular people deal with problems in their lives, they didn't turn the problem into a huge catastrophic event or simplify it, and they stood up to it. This movie was a refresher to how life really is and all the curveballs that come with it.