Dennis Quaid gains pounds to play a disgruntled academic widower whose life has gone stale in every way possible. This dysfunctional family drama revolves around the daily actions of an intellectual daughter (Page from Juno), poet son (Ashton Holmes from History of Violence) and layabout but worldly-wise adopted brother (Thomas Haden Church of Sideways). They stay locked in their routines until an ex-student – and now doctor (Parker) – breathes life back into the widower’s personal life, displeasing the possessive daughter. Written by novelist Mark Jude Poirier, commercials whiz Noam Murro directs this funny, mildly poignant look at ‘smart people’, people who should know better, with a sure hand but ends up affecting the head rather than the heart.

A decent flick. Quaid does a great job playing the "pompous windbag". Church picked up some slack when the movie was dry and together with Page added some comedic banter. Parker was sub-par and a miscast in my opinion. The problem is the movie takes forever to get going and is terribly slow. The plot hardly moves for most of the film until the end. It might be worth a viewing, but it's most certainly not purchase worthy.

Owned this one for 4 years but only just watched it. Enjoyable movie especially great turns from McQuaid, Church and Page. Horseface was more tolerable in this movie but she's still never going to be great.

Entertaining. Some funny scenes.

This is one of those films that I really wanted to like more than I did. It's a reasonably fine film, with some great performances (most notably Dennis Quaid and Thomas Hayden Church) but it's one of those films in which you've seen it all done before in better films. Definately worth a look, but you're not missing anything by not having it on your DVD shelf.

Enjoyed this film. It had substance, was well acted, and directed. Didn't really have great momentum and the basic theme of the storyline wasn't massively original, but for me it didn't need these things. I thought it was thought provoking and introspective and I haven't seen a good film like this, that's successful in these areas, in a while.

1 out of 5 (D+)

Smart People is a movie for smart people. Well, at least those with a vast knowledge of literature and the English language in general. I love how the movie didn't dumb down at any stage; it could have easily pitied the simpletons of society and resorted to basic language.

The movie is flawed however. In my opinion, the movie doesn't have much of a structure, and changes setting too quickly. Genre-wise, I don't think it knows what it wants to be, which confuses me as a viewer. The film also ends a bit too abruptly for my liking.

Overall, a pleasing film.

The smartest peole have the most to learn.