Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Smart People
Miramax Films


7.7

based on 33 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 63 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R

Starring Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church, Ashton Holmes, and Christine Lahti

Professor Lawrence Wetherhold might be imperiously brilliant, but when it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he's as downright flummoxed as the next guy. His teenage daughter is an acid-tongued overachiever who follows all too closely in dad's misery-loving footsteps, and his adopted, preposterously ne'er-do-well brother has perfected the art of freeloading. A widower who can't seem to find passion in anything anymore, not even the Victorian literature in which he's an expert, Lawrence seems to be sleepwalking through a very stunted middle age. When his brother shows up unexpectedly for an extended stay just as he accidentally encounters a former student, Janet, the circumstances stir him from his deep freeze, with often comical, sometimes heartbreaking consequences for himself and everyone around him. (Miramax)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Mark Poirier
DIRECTED BY:	Noam Murro
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 12, 2008 Theatrical: April 11, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	95 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

TV Guide Ken Fox

A sharp, superbly acted character-driven comedic drama.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Smart People, unlike "Sideways" or "The Savages," has a plot that's a little too rote.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

After its rough opening, Smart People settles down to be a funny, wryly enjoyable, effortlessly poignant parable of family life and a splendid showcase for its cast -- especially Page, who handily steals the movie and proves that her "Juno" success was no fluke.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Page and Church work so brilliantly together as a comic team that it's worth enduring the leads' utter lack of chemistry together - not to mention the fact they're both wildly miscast.

Time Richard Schickel

There's nothing world shattering about Smart People. No one is ever going to call it a "must see" movie. But it is a trim, intelligent, reasonably amusing little movie. Call it a "could see."

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A good deal of the freshness comes from a grand, clownish slob played by Thomas Haden Church -- he's actually the smartest person of the piece -- while Dennis Quaid occupies the center with a mastery that's all the more notable for its humanity.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Poirer and director Noam Murro have trouble bringing this to a satisfying climax, but the characters are credible and sharply observed and all four actors go to town.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Poirier is a master at dialogue. His script crackles with sharp lines and he gives all his scenes a splendid comic undertow.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

It's the kind of observational comedy, that'll be hard to find come summertime and should be enjoyed while there's still a chance.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The great virtue of Smart People, attributable to Noam Murro’s easygoing direction as well as to Mr. Poirier’s wandering screenplay, lies in its general preference for small insights over grand revelations.

The New Yorker David Denby

These small-scale, intelligent movies can fall into a trap: it’s hard to achieve a satisfactory dramatic climax when observation is your principal dramatic mode.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

There much more roiling beneath the surface of these characters and it's a shame we don't come to understand them better. Smart people, dumb choices: it's true for both the characters and the filmmakers.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Dennis Quaid could stand in for Jeff Daniels' similarly toxic snob in "The Squid And The Whale," if only he were a little smarter and a little better-dressed.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

A third of the way through Smart People, I channeled Randy Newman's "Short People" and thought, "Smart people got no reason to live."

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The main problem with Smart People is that it never breaks new ground. This is territory we have seen tilled to better effect by more perceptive motion pictures.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Though it features witty dialogue and good performances, the plot contrivances keep it from being an altogether winning enterprise.

Slate Dana Stevens

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.

Film Threat Zack Haddad

It is just too bad that this film isn’t as snarky and groundbreaking as it would like you to think it is.

Variety Dennis Harvey

Dysfunctional family seriocomedy is well cast, but characters and conflicts lack the sharper definition of similar recent exercises like "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Upside of Anger" and Noah Baumbach's films.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

The ensemble can't bring enough, though, to overcome the unoriginal setup and predictable story arc.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Fine actors do their damnedest to make this dumb movie look sharp.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The movie gets bogged down in the formula conventions of romantic comedy, and in the process, it loses all honesty.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Smart People tastes as fake as a Wal-Mart corn dog. Besides, it doesn't even know the work is Faerie Queen, not ''Fairie.'' Somewhere, Edmund Spenser is turning in his grave. You don't even have to be smart to know that.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The middling romantic comedy Smart People, which centers on a hyperintellectual dysfunctional family, is of interest chiefly for the first post-Juno role of Ellen Page.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

It's impossible to tell whether the film's ending is happy because it's happy or because it's ending.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Quaid doesn't have much to work with, and so deflects the portrayal away from the mind toward the body – consistently giving the coot a hunched, pigeon-toed gait. Nice try, but that bird won't fly.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Church is most at home in his character’s skin; aside from the game but strident Quaid, all the leading players are ideally cast. It’s the script that isn’t ideally cast.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Mostly, Smart People is a failure of imagination.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Quaid and Church are funny, but too much of this film is not half as smart as it thinks it is.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

It's like the entire season of a sitcom whittled down to a single episode. There's no time for characterization, no room for emotion, no interest in anything other than moving the story forward. It's all action, no reaction. One minute they're miserable; 90 minutes later, aww better.

Empire Helen O'Hara

Strong performances and a few laughs, but the story feels lazy next to superior efforts recently in the same genre.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

In what world does Smart People exist? Clearly not the real one, though this dramedy wants to think it's filled with ironic insights about love and family.

Premiere Ryan Stewart

Dennis Quaid is mostly lost at sea as Lawrence Wetherhold, the Carnegie Mellon lit professor; he apparently saw fit to tinker with his performance as filming went along, greeting us in some scenes as a noticeably swishy highbrow, while at other moments he's channeling the smiling, drunken menace of Nicholson's Jack Torrance.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 63 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mark gave it a3:
Interesting story that was poorly written. Cliche and attempted to be deep -- weak.

Patrick D gave it a5:
The problem with the movie is that it is uninspired. It's not terrible in any aspect. The acting is credible, the direction is okay, but it lacks any heart. The worst sin of the movie is that it's boring.

Tom P. gave it a9:
Loved the tone and humor.

Tony B. gave it a4:
Ellen Page and Thomas Haden Church are the only reasons to see this one. Sara Jessica Parker is adequate in a poorly written role, but Dennis Quaid is not even that.

Sam S. gave it a1:
The only thing more pathetic than knowing this movie is the sad and boring autobiography of the playwright, Mark Poirier, is the attempt of Dennis Quaid to conceal the fact that he's not 'acting' but is, in reality, that pathetic.

Craig A. gave it an8:
Coming of middle-age drama about a university professor who begins the film as an overgrown infant and ends it as every student's favorite lecturer.

Trevor gave it a3:
Really disappointed me. The premise has great potential, but the characters are mostly unlikeable. There is no chemistry between the leads, and Dennis Quaid comes off more like a semi-retarded, old pervert than a misunderstood, grumpy genius. Several plot devices are very cliched, and the ending is pretty much as cheesy as you can get.

Smart People Miramax Films

Smart People
Miramax Films