Smart People (R) ** | Failing the chemistry test

BY CONNIE OGLE

cogle@MiamiHerald.com

Smart People isn't so much anti-intellectual as it is hyper-ignorant of the ways in which people interact and behave. Ostensibly a story about a curmudgeonly widowed professor (a hirsute Dennis Quaid with a stunt paunch) and his difficulties connecting with his family, the film's true aim appears to be making us relieved we're not too bright. Those straight-A students, they may score high-paying jobs, big houses and expense accounts, but they never have any fun.

In the world of Smart People, which is set at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the truly intelligent can't handle everyday stress. They can dissect Bleak House and smugly rattle off SAT-vocabulary words, but they can't remember the names of their students or maintain friendships or even properly put on a condom.

Thus Lawrence Wetherhold (Quaid) bumbles badly when he tries to fire up a relationship with an ER doctor (Sarah Jessica Parker, a fine Carrie Bradshaw but the least believable and possibly most careless physician in the history of medicine).

''I prefer language to be precise,'' Lawrence tells her by way of banter. She tells him he should have said, ''I prefer precise language.'' I prefer dialogue that actually sounds as if someone might say it, but clearly we can't always get what we want.

In sharp contrast to Lawrence is his adopted brother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), a lovable loser who's either cadging money or leading his prissy, brilliant niece Vanessa (Ellen Page) down the path to ''real'' life, which apparently consists of smoking pot and watching telenovelas or drinking cheap beer in a shabby bar and flirting with incest. There's also a college-age son lurking on the fringes, so inconsequential one would not be remiss to forget his name.

It's kind of fun to watch Quaid lurch around as if he did not own a spectacular six-pack, and Church (Sideways) is amusing, even if his part requires little more than spouting a few ne'er-do-well witticisms and wearing a ridiculous pair of red long johns. But the women's roles are one-dimensional, bordering on condescending. As the hot-and-cold doc, Parker is horribly miscast, and, as Vanessa, Page is saddled with an unpleasant and insulting Young-Republican persona -- she has a pin-up of Ronald Reagan taped to her bedroom wall -- as inauthentic as Quaid's faux stomach.

Vanessa reminds us what a rare gem of a part the Oscar-nominated Page had in Juno. With a nuanced script that dared to imagine smart characters could make mistakes -- one that acknowledged people can be brave and scared, happy and sad, foolish and intelligent, all at the same time -- Juno added depth and knowing humor to an old story. Smart People, on the other hand, tastes as fake as a Wal-Mart corn dog. Besides, it doesn't even know the work is Faerie Queen, not ''Fairie.'' Somewhere, Edmund Spenser is turning in his grave. You don't even have to be smart to know that.

Cast: Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church

Director: Noam Murro

Screenwriter: Mark Poirier

Producers: Michael Costigan, Bridget Johnson, Michael London, Bruna Papandrea

A Miramax release. Running time: 95 minutes. Language, teen drug and alcohol use, some sexuality. Playing at area theaters.