Written by Nicole Pedersen

Hmm, a movie about a family with high IQ’s and even higher rates of dysfunction? That sounds fresh and new, where do I sign up?

Ever since America fell in love with Wes Anderson’s the Royal Tenebaums over six years ago, it seems that Hollywood can’t make enough movies about the secret lives of the intellectual elite. There was the Squid and the Whale, Running with Scissors and Winter Passing, not to mention films that explore idiosyncratic family relations with or without intellectual superiority like the Family Stone.

In this vein, Miramax is offering up the feature Smart People, fresh from its debut as an official selection at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. A trailer and some clips for the film starring Dennis Quaid was recently released, and despite providing ample face time for indie teen de jour and Oscar nominee Ellen Page, it left me wondering if the producers weren’t attempting to trade on my love of Wes Anderson to get me to watch yet another film short on laughs and long on the ramblings of my supposed superiors.

Smart People is from the production company that made Sideways, a film universally worshipped by middle-aged men but that I found ponderous in its narcissism (sort of like most of the actual middle-aged men I know). Like Sideways, Smart People features the excellent Thomas Hayden Church, this time as the slacker brother of Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Quaid). The trailer makes sure to emphasize the understated quips of Church as well as a few Juno-esque zingers by Ellen Page, who plays Quaid’s over-achieving daughter. 

The problem is that after all of the wacky-family flicks of late, I am wary of being sold on another comedic Royal Tenenbaums when what is really being offered is another depressing Squid and the Whale. The three available clips from the film make it clear that when you subtract the pert, poppy sound of Paul Westerberg’s “Dyslexic Heart” from the footage, what is left is just another day in the life of a family suffering from an inflated sense of their own charisma.

Also starring the one and only “Unsexiest Woman Alive” Sarah Jessica Parker, Smart People opens on April 11 and is rated R.

To see if indeed the smartest people have the most to learn, check the trailer and clips below.

Smart People Movie Trailer

Movie Clip 1 – win win situation

Movie Clip 2 – Your essay

Movie Clip 3 – Merry Christmas