When I told my colleagues I was off to see the film Smart People, their comment as I walked out the door was “I hope Sarah Jessica Parker finally does a decent film”.

And it’s a good point. You could argue that SJP hasn’t done a decent flick since she jived around like a midget with ants in her pants in Footloose. Movie choices such as Mars Attacks! and Failure to Launch have put the curly-haired lass in jeopardy of Sex and the City being the only body of work she’s remembered for.

Thankfully, Smart People could well be the vehicle that saves her big screen career.

This is a film about a family on its knees. Dennis Quaid plays Professor Lawrence Wetherhold, a gruff intellectual who has book smarts, but is utterly useless when it comes to dealing with his family. His teenage daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page) is a wry, overachiever who has trouble making friends, and his adopted brother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church, aka “the leathery guy from Ned and Stacey”) is a freeloading pot smoker who turns the household on its head when he comes to stay.
As Quaid’s widowed character is stumbling through the doldrums of middle age, he encounters Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), a former student who endeavours to shake him out of his funk.

One of Smart People’s strongest points is the beautifully crafted script, which comes courtesy of acclaimed novelist Mark Poirier. The pace drifts pleasingly between cracking and languid and the dialogue is razor sharp. The film also works due to the casting, which is spot-on. Quaid is perfectly cantankerous, Haden Church does a wonderful job as the “overgrown toddler” and Parker handles the somewhat complex character of Janet with aplomb.

Many people will be watching this film to see what Ellen Page can pull out of her acting hat, post-Juno. And while she is fabulously difficult and vulnerable and quirky in this role, it’s dangerously close to the part she played in Juno. If she’s not careful, there’s a chance she’ll become typecast as the quick-witted, jumper-wearing angsty teen.
 
My only real criticism of Smart People is that the ending is a little saccharine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those arty types who is against resolution in a film – in fact, I tend to kick the cinema seat in front of me like a petulant child if the plot leaves me hanging. But everything seems to resolve itself incredibly quickly in Smart People. The film does such a good job of creating an awkward and bleak snapshot of family life in suburban Pittsburgh in the first part: the hues are grey and navy, the world is filled with icy bus shelters and parking lot dumpsters and while the mood never actually reaches depression, it comes wonderfully close. Then, in the final five minutes, rainbows spring into the sky and the frost thaws mighty quickly.

But all up, Smart People is a cinematic pleasure. It manages to be thought-provoking without being difficult and arduous, which is no mean feat. As director Noam Murro puts it, “the film is about very serious themes, yet it addresses them very unassumingly.

“There’s a wonderful poignancy to these characters, but at the same time they can be painfully funny. It’s a story that invites you in without feeling too heavy ... The story doesn’t take itself too seriously and, therefore, I think it allows you to get closer to some kind of truth.”

Smart People opens in cinemas on April 24. Until then, you can view the trailer here on TheVine.