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Dennis Quaid
Thomas Haden Church
Sarah Jessica Parker
Ellen Page
Ashton Holmes
Camille Mana

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An uptight, selfish professor takes out his life's lessons and pains on his students, daughter and family until he meets an ER doctor who seems to have what he is looking for. Just when it seems he may be able to turn his life around, his adopted brother shows up to try to shake up the family even more.

02/14/2009 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

Decent enough movie and worth the watch.

It's a decent enough movie and worth the watch. The solid performances make the film likable and the story is interesting to watch, while it's not something that everyone can relate too, it's a good movie.

Dennis Quaid looked and acted precisely like the crusty English professor he was meant to be, Ellen Page was the smart daughter who protects her widowed father while attempting to fill her mother's shoes in running the household, at the expense of her own happiness, and Thomas Haden Church was an unexpected star as Quaid's adopted brother. Add to this mix Sara Jessica Parker as a Doctor, she & Dennis become involved with each other.

It is not a happy tale about people,but is fairly realistic in various relationships, & troubled family problems. The story line was thin and a throwa...

Rating of
2.5/4 

10/19/2008 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

Nice Message Regarding Emotional Intelligence

Even though I’ve seen this kind of movie before, I still really liked it because it had a good balance between comedy and drama. Not only is it about family dynamics, it’s also about relationships outside the home (or lack thereof). In the middle of the film, I realized the greatness of its title. Yes, most of the characters are smart academic-wise but some of them lack emotional intelligence, which makes it harder for them to be liked by others. Dennis Quaid is great as a professor and a father who not only wants to get his book published but also become the head of the English department. Quaid is often very elegant and I think he truly shines. A lot of people claim that Ellen Page plays the same role as a blend between quirky and too smart for her own good. I disagree because her chara...

Rating of
3/4 

04/30/2008 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

Single Daddy Double-Feature

Within a couple of days last weekend, I unintentionally saw two different movies with the similar theme of a single father trying to recreate his life several years after his wife's death. Such a coincidence probably caused my to think more harshly about the first, "Smart People", and more favorably about the second, "Dan in Real Life".

I love the idea of a movie that mocks the self-obsessed, book-smart people who don't have an ounce of common sense. But "Smart People" has only one or two moments where the issue is brought to the forefront. For example, Sarah Jessica Parker M.D. says about her relationship with Dennis Quaid, "We're smart people; we'll figure it out." Either that wasn't really supposed to be the focus of the movie, or it was so poorly constructed that it took this s...

Rating of
2.5/4