Smart People

I would like to see this movie written and directed by Wes Anderson and with Gwyneth Paltrow (or any female) instead of horsegirl S.J. Parker. That could be something great, but now - it's another mediocre indie soft-drama about nothing-special. I love Ellen Page (sooooo much, Pickpocket), but she isn't Al Pacino and unfortunately she can't turn crap into gold.

Way too typically quirky, hitting a passable middle road between humor and drama. Ending up being neither particularly funny nor emotional, it's just kind of there. Whatever.

This Movie Was Empty And Sarah Jessica Parker Makes Me Angry

If it weren't for Thomas Haden Church I'm not sure I could have made it through this movie. All the other characters seemed quite annoying as they tried to deal with their pseudo-problems that made me dislike them instead of sympathize.

A movie with no people, just caricatures.

Boring... Just not a very good movie at all.

Thomas Haden Church is a riot per usual, and Dennis Quaid is actually quite good.

No matter how many movies she's in Sarah Jessica Parker is in no way attractive, and no matter how many movies Ellen Page is in, her pseudo-intellectual BS is never appealing. However, Dennis Quaid is watchable, and Thomas Haden Church is the only character that works with this personality.

Have you ever seen that website stuffwhitepeoplelike.com? Smart People is basically that website in two hours with ZERO funny. It should just be renamed White People. White People with unfunny problems. My God, this movie blows. How do people like this uncultured, witless garbage? The same people who think this stuff is funny are the same people who read poetry anthologies at their local Borders booksellers. What a bunch of dickheads.

CMU! - 10/4/12

http://gorgview.com/smart-people

Points for Ellen Page for her performance as the witty college age daughter. Dennis Quaid plays a crusty old professor and looks every bit the part an aging man beginning to get frail. I was not amused by his gruff character. Sarah Jessica Parker played a doctor and there was little chemistry between them. Thomas Haden Church was entertaining and unexpectedly not annoying. Except from a few good scenes, this movie plods along and hasn't really much to say.

As tough as Lawrence is to like, Smart People is even harder to hate, mainly because of the sharply observed script by novelist Mark Jude Poirier. Just when you're losing patience with the movie, it sneaks up on you with a poignant detail or a character-defining turn of phrase.

I enjoyed this character based film. Denis Quaid and Ellen Page give very good performances in this film. The script has some funny moments and it paints a good picture of a dysfunctional family.

Juno?

good movie good cast good story 10 out of 10

The title is incorrect. It should be called Emotionally-Stunted Self-Absorbed People. Seriously, apart from Thomas Haden Church, who plays the loveable loser quite well, I didn't give a crap about any of the obnoxious characters in this film. What plot there is, and there isn't much, is clichéd and incredibly predictable. It's like a coming of age film, only instead of a moody teenager, there's a smug, arrogant, 50-something Dennis Quaid.

"Smart People is a borderline-excruciating exercise in trying to replicate the eccentric charm of Little Miss Sunshine." - Nick Schager

65

They might as well have named it boring people. I don't know what it was but this movie seemed like it was six hours long. I kept checking the time played.

Unfortunately I just didn't feel a thing while watching this. Ellen Page was good and I've always enjoyed her, but that's about it. I didn't find the movie funny, I didn't find it dramatic, I didn't think the romance was interesting, it wasn't a clever movie. It was just kind of there, kind of blah, so I don't really HATE the movie... just not worth seeing because it's just another film like this in a huge sea of them.

Disappointing. Some potential here, but as others have said, the characters were generally unlikable. There were a few smart lines, but just not very much fun.

It's terrifically acted but very poorly directed. The soft rock music all the time was rather cringe worthy as well.

This is the movie I use as an example to thwart those mindless Ellen Page freaks that praise her every move.

BUena

Mwuhhhh.. no

It could be very good.

The music in this movie did not suit it at all and really put a damper on my experience of it.

Snore...

Completely horrible channel for a good Ellen Page performance.

Ultimately unsatisfying.

Decently funny movie here despite being cast with two people who generally annoy the shit out of me, those two being Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker. Both Quaid and Parker play something outside of their usually normal roles and come out on top for a change. Ellen Page does a Juno-ish role well here. She may need to change it up to avoid being typecast. Thomas Hayden Church, aka Jason Bateman's evil twin, plays a "Less Than Zero" type character very well here also. This is worth a rental.

I just kept waiting for something to actually happen in this movie. I felt like they would start to build a story and then it would disappear. The interaction between Haden Church and Page was good. I wish there had been a little more of it. Although I felt like Page's character was too similar to her Juno character. It wasn't a horrible movie, but just felt it was incomplete when it ended.

Boring and slow, music too loud. Smart people are only rationally smart, not emotionally.

the characters are all so depressing yet i laughed several times while watching it

If only Smart People were half as "smart" as it proclaims itself to be, the movie MIGHT have been HALFWAY enjoyable. The ill-advised film assumes that viewers will give a crap about a group of condescending characters and their paper-thin life problems. The screenplay is obnoxious; the judgement of the actors whom signed upon the project after reading the script is questionable, making one wonder if they share the attitude of the characters they portray. Not recommended whatsoever.

To call it "smart" would be a cliche, but that's exactly what it is -- a well written, intelligent comedy about intelligent people and their social dysfunction.

I hate Ellen Page sooooo much.

It's not without enjoyable and funny moments, however the film quickly begins to wander. The third act suffers because of the rather banal plot, and the picture card credits come off as entirely unnecessary.

Poirier's script has a point of view, but little to express about it, and Murro films it with dutiful efficiency. There's a grim outlook and a narrative destination point where the mandates of character development insist on that outlook lightening. The process of getting there is haphazard. Characters make choices with no compelling drive to do so. The film is peppered with the intelligence that the title promises. It's also rarely believable or built upon recognizable emotions.

I think the point of this movie was to make me hate the every single character. The "are we INDIE enough NOWWWWWWW" syndrome has gone too far. That, along with the predictible plot points, (she gets pregnant? no way!!!!) knock this movie down. Ellen Page was very good in this. Thought she was carried in Juno by a superb cast, but this didn't have that and she still shined. Who doesn't love to hate a young republican?

Though the performances are good, I absolutely detested every charcacter that entered the screen, making it impossible for me to care about anyone.

Ellen Page is basically just playing Juno again. And Dennis Quaid was kind of repulsive. Still, I kind of liked this film.