Who is the Audience for This Movie?

Fans of movies that deal with quirky family relationships.

What I Liked About This Movie

Dennis Quad has appeared in many movies over the years ranging from family oriented comedies to big action blockbusters to science fiction movies. It could be said that he rarely sticks out in either a good or bad way in his movie roles. For the first time I actually took notice in his role in a movie and it I believe he is the best part of the movie. He uncharacteristically plays a smug character who is obsessed with only himself to a tee. For the most part when scenes with the other characters were on screen I was waiting to see his next scene.

Not to take away from the rest of the movie even though Dennis Quad was the stand out I did enjoy other aspects of the movie. When you see a trailer or read about a movie like Smart People you would most likely assume it is one of those movies where all the characters talk too intelligently making it feel like it is trying to be smarter then it actually is. But the directors of this movie have obviously seen a lot of those types of movies and instead made a move in the opposite direction by adding a few averagely intelligent characters to deliver most of the movies wisdom.

What Didn’t Work For Me

I couldn’t shake the feeling throughout the movie that one of the characters was uselessly wasting screen time. The character in question is that of the son attending university who happens to not even be on the DVD cover. All of the scenes he was in were jammed in between better scenes and his character progression was non existent.

One other thing that bothered me was that scenes felt loosely edited together almost resembling a collection of events instead of a structured narrative. Some scenes were great while others were merely ok giving the movie a very average quality.

Should You Watch This Movie?

Smart People is a predictable but enjoyable movie.

My Rating (Out of 13)