Smart People Review

Brett>> I really loved SMART PEOPLE. It was a smart movie and I laughed my ass off at the same time. The family in the movie were a disfunctional bunch, sent off the rails by the death of the mother, and we join them in this movie just as they begin to get their act together after what is hinted at as a very long time.

Babsi>> It was very good, the casting was fantastic and very clever. The characters were all very different, smart but cranky professor, smart but kinda unhappy daughter, weird adopted brother funny and dry and the awsome Sarah Jessica Parker as certainly smart and very interesting doctor turned girlfriend. She really has this remarkable ability to create different characters in different films, I mean some people are always the boring same, but she is different. The script was great. What I thought was cool was that it didn’t try desperatly to be a cool or arty film. It just existed, kinda like life. Not like oh this is an arty film I better put weird effects and strange camera angles and maybe half of it black and white. No, it didn’t need that at all, the story just kinda spoke for itself. A bunch of interesting and weird people working out stuff…

Brett>> I loved Sarah Jessica Parker in this as well. She and Dennis Quaid had the grown up deep relationship in this movie and they really sold it. I also liked the other relationship between Quaid’s adopted brother (a middle aged loser) and his daughter (a high-school overachiever). The meeting of his slacker devil may care attitude and her prim control freakery was delicious. At one point she comes into the room and tells him that he should have made the bed because it sets the tone for the day, and he replies that she doesn’t know what tone he is trying to set. Right there we have the character that I most identify with, the slacker brother. I also liked how we see people reading and talking with passion about books at one moment and then drinking and making bad choices the next. We are all that mixture of wise and stupid, just like the people in the movie.

Babsi>> Yeah that was cool. The non smart brother was really interesting, it seemed that he was most happy and comfortable with his choices even though they might seem not soo cool and suitable in the real world. It was the smart people who had issues. Ellen Page as the daughter was a very interesting character, very set in her opinions kinda scary but fascinating. I guess we can assume once she gets herself to California to uni she will be happy and content. Her dad was very self absorbed though and she was really kinda lost in the world. Smart but lost, not an ideal combination. I have recently thought about the smart and bad weather combination. Maybe when its nice and sunny you don’t really need your brain that much?

Brett>> Yeah, this was set in Pitsburgh in the cold. The people had to stay home and read and talk. Maybe the movie wouldn’t have been so smart if it was set on Bondi Beach. So I’d give it five spirals. It was one of the best movies I’ve seen this year so far.

Babsi>> Definitely four spirals from me.