Smart People (15)

From the trendy typography in the opening credits to the acoustic guitar soundtrack, Noam Murro's debut mumbles "indie drama" from the off.

Dennis Quaid is a widowed professor bringing up a teenage poet son and a Young Republican daughter (Ellen Page). Joining the mix are a drop-out uncle and Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City) as a doctor trying to cure Quaid's achy-breaky heart.

Very Anne Tyler/Wonder Boys in its soft focus, liberal manner, with fine performances from Quaid and Page on her way to perfecting the surly style that came into its own in Juno. Harmless fare but like the prof himself a tad overworked and predictable.

As for SJP as an emergency room doctor – not in those heels, sweetie.

There are two stories running through this film and one of them is much more entertaining than the other.

The problem is that the more entertaining one is supposed to be the sub-plot, which means at times the main story struggles to find room.

Grumpy widower Dennis Quaid is living a sociopathic existence in his cloistered academic life and that’s just the way he likes it. That is until a chance meeting with one of his former students, Sarah Jessica Parker.

They begin a relationship which is observed by a mixture of shock and disbelief by Quaid’s oldest daughter Ellen Page, and his no-good adopted brother Thomas Haden Church. I know we’re supposed to care about Quaid and Parker, they’re nice people who deserve some happiness after all. But my eye kept being drawn to the burgeoning and quite different relationship between Page and Church.

As well as acting like a Greek chorus for the main event, these two form a partnership that both characters really need. It all turns out as well as it should and, just for once in a film like this, you can’t really grudge anyone their happiness.

The performances from all four are fine but given her success with Juno, Ellen Page needs to be careful not to be typecast as the sparky, rebellious teen with a smart mouth. And if she doesn’t then it should make her next film, Jane Eyre, really interesting.