S and I went to see Smart People last night at the Guild 45th, I’ve never been to the theatre and really not had the chance until last night. It was worth going to a small theatre to see a good movie.
Ok so the movie itself was smart as the title would suggest. The cast was good, the direction was worth seeing, and the writing was excellent! Ellen Page, after her appearance in Juno, I didn’t expect something like this from her, plays a young republican who is growing up to be just like her father, played by Dennis Quaid, a self absorbed prick. It’s not until her adopted uncle, Thomas Haden Church, who is… well exactly opposite from her father, that she begins to find something better to do with her life. Don’t misunderstand me when I explain the characters, the movie is not just about a single one of them, it’s about a whole family of them. The son is a poet, the father is a professor, the daughter is a republican and the uncle is… well he’s not much of anything expect the voice of reason. It’s almost like the uncle character is a confused Jiminy Cricket, in the way that if you’re a young republican you have a conscience that’s telling you to smoke pot and get drunk. The best line from the film was when Ellen Page was at the bar getting drunk and comes out from the bathroom to see a few of the people from her school and says “what’s it like to be dumb?” The response from the other girls is “what’s it like to eat lunch by yourself?” her response to this quip is “it sucks.”
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