Smart People

The central point of this glum dramedy is that smart people can be emotionally dumb and willfully insensitive. That's certainly the case with self-absorbed Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid), a widowed English professor too full of his own self-importance to bother with simple politeness and social niceties, let alone extend any respect to his students. His contempt for the world has seeped into his teenage daughter (Ellen Page) like a hereditary condition; she's a friendless overachiever who wears her sarcasm like a uniform. Their insular existence leaves older brother James (Ashton Holmes) out of the equation. But their lives get a one-two punch when Lawrence's schlub of a loser brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), moves in and brings some much-needed distraction to the intellectually suffocating household, and Lawrence goes on his first date in years. It turns out that emergency room doctor (and former Wetherhold student) Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker) is quite gifted at romantic sabotage, so they're a real match. Yes, it's another American movie about damaged souls stewing in their own loneliness and pain until they learn to let down their emotional armor and let themselves feel. It's not as smart as it should be, but, to the film's credit, the inevitable breakthroughs have an honest awkwardness to them, as if they are stumbling through uncharted territory.

The DVD and Blu-ray releases feature the obligatory extras. The commentary by director Noam Murro and screenwriter Mark Poirier is informative and amiable enough, as long as you're not looking for any weighty insights, and "The Smartest People" is a 16-minute featurette with the cast and producers joining Murro and Poirier to gush over the project and their fellow artists. Also features 10 minutes of deleted scenes and a collection of obligatory bloopers and outtakes.