Smart People

University professor and widower Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) ekes out a self-centred existence, blind to his children's problems and students' questions. Work on his academic book 'You Can't Read' is put on hold when step-brother slacker Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) floats into his life for a hand-out. Wetherhold is thrown out of his comfort zone by former student Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), whose incredible falling in love with the professor can only be explained in a montage from director Noam Murro. Daughter Vanessa (Juno's Ellen Page) can't get her head around the couple either, as she vies for her father's attention by mimicking his intellectual swagger. If anything, Quaid and Page play their over-intellectual characters too well, sapping any audience sympathy for their plights. Haden Church is deployed for some Sideways-style light relief, and though Smart People doesn't have the comic crackle of that film, it is refreshing in its avoidance of Holywood character transformations.