Review: Smart People

Dennis Quaid is a vinegary prick teaching Victorian lit at Carnegie-Mellon, a campus last seen in “The Mothman Prophecies” and “The Wonder Boys.” As Lawrence Wetherhold, his likeably unlikable character belongs on the same shelf of cliched profs as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character in “The Savages,” the Brecht theater academic in Buffalo. Novelist, screenwriter and one-time college teacher Mark Jude Poirier penned Wetherhold, who is peddling a manuscript titled “The Price of Postmodernism: Epistemology, Hermeneutics and the Literary Canon.” An editor at Penguin thinks the bullying tone of the book (maybe a nod to Stanley Fish) will bait outrage on NPR and boost sales. A better title is “You Can’t Read” that was contributed by the widower’s 17-year-old daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page from “Juno”). The less glib literary output of her older brother (Ashton Holmes) living in the dorm goes unnoticed by their father. A back injury and concussion prevent Wetherhed from driving, so his adopted brother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) moves in to be his chauffeur and Vanessa’s after-school pal. Chuck thinks this over-achieving Young Republican who cooks the meals and does the laundry is too uptight, so he gets her drunk. With a sloppy kiss, she channels her daddy issues through him, while rebuffing her dad’s new belle. That’s Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), the doc at Allegheny General who treated Lawrence after his accident. Not only did he not recall her from his class ten years ago, he had no idea she had a crush on him that will lead them to get a room at the Essex House. “Smart People” is a wry visit with some smart-mouthed folks in perpetually overcast Pennsylvania. They make modest repairs in their misery, despite the chirpy songs on Nuno Bettencourt’s cloying acoustic score. 93m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Bill Stamets)