Smart People - Perhaps The Worst Movie Of History?
The DVD cover
Recently, within the last two days, to be precise, I saw Smart People with my mother, laying on the couch in my drunken summer state, just laying in the AC. While we both made fun of the complete lack of interest the movie created in either of us, she demanded we continue to watch, so we did, if only to stay in the air conditioning for a short while longer.
Carnegie Mellon English Professor Lawrence Wetherhold, who was played (badly) by Dennis Quaid, is an obnoxious, pompous man, who walks around like he is some hesitant savior of all the idiots he must subject himself to on a daily basis. Widowed nearly seven years before the movie opens (I think she killed herself), he is a bitter man, who needs to shower it appears.
He has a son, who attends his school (and is a closet poet, and general douche bag), and a daughter (who is obsessed with perfection in school, but doesn't care for anything she's learning). His adopted brother is the only semi-likable character in the entire movie. After pulling a particularly douchey move of trying to break into an impound lot (he had parked his car across two spots, like the jerk he is), he falls and has a seizure. He's taken to the hospital, where his former student (unknown to him), Janet, who is played by Sarah Jessica Parker, is his doctor. While she is in general more likable, she is still pretty much an annoying woman, so my mother and I mocked her too.
They, of course, fall in love (in the words of my mother: "Who would love him? He looks like a middle aged pedophile!", while his obnoxious daughter gets a thing for her adopted uncle.
What the heck?
If the plot wasn't so horrible, the speech was worse.
People walked around throwing around witty insults (the kind that scream, I am so much better than you), and using words I'd only ever heard of teachers saying in annoying tones to belittle students. Not only did everyone apparently hate each other, but they were manipulative, awkward, cruel, and entirely more evil than humans really are.
In all, I was bothered to have wasted so much time on this movie. If someone offers you a million dollars to watch it, do it at your own risk, as I am now a much more bitter person than I had ever dreamed of being, just from watching the trash.
I am certainly a fan of intelligent, witty, sarcastic movies (and people, in general), but this wasn't any of those things, though it might have claimed to be. It was pompous, flat, and rude, which I am very willing to punch when in the form of a person. The only reason I refrained? My television cost too much to trash.
