Smart casting

Smart People gets saved by outstanding acting | Sam Thielman

Miramax Films

Pity the uptight and brainy. They've been getting the short end of the stick from filmmakers for decades now, reflexively overworking in their gloomy offices (probably as English professors or something boring like that) until Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Streisand, or Sarah Jessica Parker comes along to rescue them, usually by driving them crazy until they realize they're in love.

Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is the latest of these human turtles in Smart People, and Janet Hartigan (Parker) his lifeline, though the genre has changed in recent years. Now, rather than indulging in a bicycle chase down Lombard Street in San Francisco, the characters just sleep together, smoke pot, hit on their uncles, and wittily posture about suburban ennui (yes, it's rated R). I miss the bicycle.