SMART PEOPLE

Smart People is a warm, honest film that unfortunately lack’s a little something. The Wetherhold’s are a gifted family that are struggling to find happiness. Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quad) is an angry professor and widower who has more enemies than friends, and who is letting his forties pass him by. Life changes when his carefree unemployed brother (Thomas Haden Church) comes to stay and he meets a beautiful and intelligent doctor (Sarah Jessica Parker). Things begin to change for the better as the members of the family learn to ‘get a life’. Ellen Page is outstanding as Lawrence’s teenage daughter: a bratty, arrogant overachiever who can be brutally cruel. Smart people deals with the issues that highly intelligent people face in the world of academia, however it often fails to make any significant statements and falls too easily into the romantic comedy genre. Released 24 April. (Jasmine McLennan)