Written by Mark Jude Poirier and directed by newcomer Noam Murro, Smart People portrays the struggles of a dysfunctional and emotionally malnourished family as it tries to regain some kind of normalcy years after the death of the wife and mother.

If there were a literal Wetherhold family tree, it would be blighted and over pruned. Dennis Quaid (The Rookie, Traffic) plays Lawrence Wetherhold, the college professor-trunk of the family. Unfortunately, he’s jaded, his roots still entangled with the long-atrophied underground organs of his deceased wife, and he’s so busy hogging sun from the undergrowth that he finds himself alone in the forest.

Two branches protrude from this shaky support system: the SAT-obsessed, Young Republican daughter Vanessa, played by Ellen Page (Hard Candy, Juno); and Vanessa’s brother James, played by Ashton Holmes (A History of Violence) a skinny, fast-growing shoot, whose life within the norm and success as a published poet is a secret from his quirky relatives. If all this weren’t bad enough, we quickly see another, younger tree shoot up in the form of Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City, Mars Attacks) as Janet Hartigan, 10 years out of college and a successful ER doctor still crushing on Professor Wetherhold, her ex-teacher.

Enter the perpetually down-on-his-luck Chuck Wetherhold (Thomas Haden Church), Lawrence’s estranged adopted brother.

“These children haven’t been properly parented in many years. They’re practically feral. That’s why I was brought in,” he only half-jokes over a multicourse dinner made from scratch by the people-pleasing Vanessa. What he’s probably referring to is the fact that their father’s tendency to be brusque, curt and unavailable has pushed his son into dorm-life seclusion and his daughter into a corner where academics are everything and friendship is frivolous.

Vanessa is the first one to be cracked by Chuck’s relaxed, life-loving style, and James gets some much-needed attention from an older male.

However, Chuck’s efforts seem powerless to fight the real problem: his uptight, miserable, much-hated older brother. It’s up to him to band together with the cute doctor to solve the family’s problems, bring them back down to earth and help them to stop being miserable and angry at everyone, and start accepting things as they are. Despite the challenges he faces, he succeeds to some degree in helping the family develop as individuals, reflected in the movie by engaging character development that makes this a must-see for fans of the coming-of-age genre.

Whether the Wetherholds ever fully smarten up to the world of good people around them is for the viewers to see — and decide.

[Reach reporter Maddie Hall at arts@thedaily.washington.edu.]