Film Review - Smart People

By Vans McCoy - vansmccoy@hotmail.com

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Poor Tonto… Let me start at the beginning. I flew out to DC last Thursday to catch a Wasted Idles reunion show. Back in ’82, these guys were on the brink of breaking big out of the DC hardcore scene based on the strength of their biggest song “Kill your job.”

Things happen and the band broke up. Fast forward to the reunion show last weekend. There’s a pretty good chance that I was drinking some and started yelling at the 15 year old bass player.

Of course, it wasn’t until later that I learned the kid was the singer’s eldest son and was now part of the band as some father-son bonding thing. Long story short, you take a mouthful of sprayed Jack Daniels, a soaked bass player, an angry dad/front man, a few broken bottles and you wind up with Vans being locked up for the weekend.

I called Tonto and told him that if he didn’t fly in and bail me out that I was done writing for him. It worked.

One the plane ride back, I nursed myself back to health with some hair of the dog (on Tonto’s tab) and struggled through the in-flight film, Smart People.



Smart People is one of those movies that you’re supposed to say is great because it’s about real people with real problems. If your bullshit detector isn't going off yet, it should.

The only problem is that every character came straight out of the large lot super store of character development where everyone is so damn smart intellectually, but are repressed morons emotionally. Wow, how fucking mindblowing. You mean, they're like one way, but, but, but, in reality, they're something else. Holy horse shit! That's never crossed my mind that a human being could be so deep.

And the big shocker, the character that is the “dumbest” on paper is the only one who actually gets it and helps everyone else find their way.

In the film, Dennis Quaid plays Lawrence Wetherhold, an English professor at Carnegie Mellon, who’s in an emotional downward spiral after the death of his wife. Like all cinematic college professors, he’s a dick and a grouch and we know this because he uses two spots to park his shitty Volvo.

It’s a lazy move by the filmmakers because people who do that choose to be dicks because they’re narcissistic and/or can’t manuver their SUVs not because they're emotional wrecks.

Lawrence falls off a fence trying to get something out of his towed car and ends up in the hospital. Turns out that his his ER doctor (Sarah Jessica Parker) is a former student of his who switched her major to medicine because Lawrence was such a dick in class years ago. Wait a second, I thought his problem was that he was distraught because his wife died, and now he’s just an overall dick to help string along a thin plot… Make up your mind!

Turns out, Lawrence suffered a seizure in a scene that should’ve been in the movie, and is unable to drive for six months. Thankfully, it just so happens that his deadbeat adopted brother is back in town looking for a handout. Isn’t it great when these things just work themselves out for the sake of plot!

But there’s a twist! Lawrence, you see, he can’t sit on the passenger side of a car because that’s the side he was sitting on when his wife died. It doesn’t make sense to the people in the film, but the audience gets it right away, perhaps because the audience realizes how stupid a device it is.

Blah, blah, blah, a love story ensues between Lawrence and the doctor to the shock of nobody who is paying attention.

Oh yeah, the sub plots. First, Lawrence’s son, James, who is a student at Carnegie Melon. You see, James is also a writer, but his father doesn’t notice until James gets a poem published in The New Yorker. James is your typical whiny little bitch who complains because he’s forgotten about and no one knows who he is. Pretty lousy life, huh? Maybe the life that would lead someone to forming a punk band?

The facts in the film, as presented, suggest otherwise:

- Free tuition at a good school.
- Partying it up at the local card on his father’s dime.
- Getting published in the most prestigious magazine in the US before being old enough to rent a car.
- Nailing a hot Asian chick in his dorm room.

Not bad, if you ask me. But then what do I know? I just got bailed out by a middle aged ex-boxer who talks with a slur [NOTE FROM THE CHIEF: I had just taken Nyquil when you called, Vans. That stays in your system for hours, if not days! – Tonto]

Second, the daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page), who is obsessed with gaining a perfect SAT score. You know how we know she’s messed up? She’s a young republican! I’m no supporter of that pig sty of a party, but if you’re going to point out her politics as part of her “symptoms,” then fucking show them!

Don’t just say she’s a republican and expect the audience to be like those assholes sipping lattes at Starbucks who think they’re so much better because they’re part of a “different” corporate ran political party.

She’s heartbroken and lonely. If you can’t do anything with that besides make some hackneyed political “statement” then you’re a fucking hack.

Vanessa compensates for her mom’s loss by taking over the housewife role in the home and keeps her emotions so bottled up that the only way she can express them is by falling for her middle-aged uncle (who’s adopted, so it’s technically OK – Gotta love that clever writing).

If these people are so damn smart, why are they so two-dimensional?

Here’s part of the problem - every screenwriter thinks their family is so fucking special so they all write some pseudo-autobiographical nonsense that nobody cares about except for the writer and some producer trying to tap into the “indie market.”

Two stars for Smart People

- Vans McCoy was knocked out at a Dead Kennedys show in the early 80’s and has been a cultural expert ever since. He has spent time in several small bands over the years. He sang for The Magnificent Cox, played bass in Manson’s Ranchers, and was lead guitarist for Televised Execution. He’s spent 347 days in local jails throughout the country and is now gainfully employed managing a local video store.

NOTE: If you liked this review, we have a slew of them waiting for you in our Film Review Archive. Got a burning question on yer mind?! Ask Melvin the Pirate. More of a political junkie? You NEED to spend time in our Political Article Archive!!!