Letters to the Editor
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Sarah Jessica Parker Sucks
Ever since she inexplicably decided to defend girlfriend beater Chris Albrecht's (the former HBO CEO) domestic violence in the NYT on the grounds that "he's successful and people like to work with successful people", I decided I would never pay a penny to watch her work again.
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Wow
That quite possibly sounds like the worst movie in the world. Ugh.
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Faerie
This was a nicely written review. Thanks, Stephanie Zacharek.
I'm glad you've articulated the problem that some indie movies have, attempting to balance their indie cred with their commercial motives. The fact is, many "indie" studios are really just arms of large media conglomorates. They have to make their money back like everybody else. "Indie" is as much a marketing style as an indication of more refined or targeted filmmaking.
Anyway, you did a cool job of describing this, right off the bat.
I did wonder, though, how was Ellen Page? This is her first big performance since becoming It Girl. How'd she do? I loved her in "Hard Candy" (well, sort of loved/hated her), and of course she was terrific in "Juno." You don't have much to say about her here. Was her role a minor one?
Is it just me, or has making a character a specialized literature expert started to become a gimmick? It worked pretty well with Michael Douglas in that movie with the Bob Dylan song, and Steve Carrell in "Little Miss Sunshine" was a Proust scholar. And we had lit people in "The Squid & the Whale" and "Margot's Wedding." I think the hubby in the Sarah Polley/Alzheimer's movie was a literature prof too. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it's starting to feel like a formula to make a character a self-absorbed niche academic.
Speaking of which....that's what Dennis Quaid played way back when, in the remake of "D.O.A.," with Daniel Stern. Remember that? Pretty decent little noir update, on a modest level, and I think it was Quaid's first movie with Meg Ryan. (Might have been where they met.)
Dennis Quaid -- the alternative-reality Harrison Ford.
Anyway, Stephanie Zacharek, well done.
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Lousy teaching load
Why would a "specialist in Victorian literature" at a major university be standing in front of a board with anything about Spencer (heh-heh) on it? Is Quaid's character teaching surveys WAY out of his field? Do all hotshot profs at Carnegie-Mellon do that?
If he is grieving for his wife, is there any chance at all that this smart Victorianist mistily quotes In Memoriam?
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@prytania
Good catch. Spenser was 16th century, 300 years before the Victorian era.
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Adding insult to injury...
The Faerie Queene is hardly a staple of Victorian Literature.
It "came out" 300 years or so before Queen Victoria was born.
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More on the Review of "Smart People"
i saw this film at sundance back in january and while it is cute and the acting (particularly church) is good, the plot is completely implausible. i can understand why parker's character would go out with quaid's character on the first date, but he is such an insufferable, self-absorbed ass that no one -- espcially a fetching young doctor like parker -- would go on a second one! he also looks horrible. (he said on the today show that he was wearing a fat suit which i was glad to hear!) and please -- i like sarah jessica parker a lot but i had a lot of trouble believing her as the head doctor of the emergency room.
someone in another letter asked about ellen page. apparently, she made this movie before "juno". she's good in this movie but it's basically the same character writ small. she's sardonic and wry and VERY conservative but loosens up when church's character gets her stoned and drunk. it will be interesting to see her in the future and if she can grow as an actress. it is not a huge part in the movie but she is the glue that holds that disfunctional family together and she does a pretty good job in it.
all in all it's a decent movie but at the end of the day my thumb would go down.
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Agreed
It's kind of silly that "Indie" has become an aesthetic when in reality it simply means independent of major studios.
It also shows the clear lack of innovation in much of the movie world. I can only imagine how much the word "Juno" gets used at pitch meetings these days.
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I ruled out seeing this movie...
...when I saw the TV ad for it with that horrible Sly and the Family Stone song "Everyday People."
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Jumping to conclusions
Um, who said he was teaching Spenser? The review mentions that a Spenser title is written on a chalk board in a classroom scene. It does not say Quaid's character is teaching The Faerie Queene.
Professors of English frequently compare and contrast works across various periods if it helps elucidate the work being studied. Or is there some rule in US universities that profs are only permitted to reference works strictly within in their own area of specialty? Those would make for some rather boring English lit classes, I should think.
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Spenser and Victorian profs
I know this is completely off topic, but I'll just note that it isn't beyond the realm of possibility for Dennis Quaid's character to be talking about Spenser's "Faerie Queene" in a Victorian literature class, since the period was fascinated by Arthurian myth. It certainly wouldn't be out of line to use Spenser as, for instance, a way to introduce Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." And yeah, I'm a Victorian Literature professor myself.
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Try a fresher stereotype of academia PLEASE!
As a professor I am bemused by the seeming fascination with the private lives of academics. While there is surely no lack of curmudgeonly male professors, in all fields, the idea that hot young women are nursing adolescent crushes on them is beyond trite. However, if you think this film looks bad, check out Tenure with Owen Wilson and Gretchen Mol, which just finished filming. Talk about stretching credulity.
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hey I know
Get a professor except make it Archeology or something. The coeds really dig him but he's too busy racing the Nazis for the Arc...oh never mind.
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disappointing movie
I saw this last week at a preview and wondered what was left on the cutting room floor. The pieces that were left just did not hang together. Dennis Quaid was doing a version of the emotionally-constipated Jack Nicholson-type, replete with a shuffling gait and rumpled hair. Any "love" connection between Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker's characters was undectable. Thomas Hayden Church talks loudly throughout the movie. Ellen Page brings a little something to the movie, but it's pretty formulaic. Finally, Stephanie, I picked up something you missed-- I think the $300 tab that the son racks up is later shown to be a bar bill-- the name of the "book store" is later revealed to be the name of the bar. Which would also be a little strange to imagine that Dad, a prof on campus, would fail to recognize. Rent _Wonder Boys_ instead.