Solstice l The Tattooist | Smart People | Awake | Unearthed

From the producer of
"Sideways"


Sometimes the smartest people have the most to learn.

Starring
Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker,
Ellen Page & Thomas Haden Church

DVD Release:
September 15th 2008

‘A brilliantly clever comedy’ 
Grazia

‘Hilarious and touching in equal measures’
Sight & Sound

‘One seriously smart-ass flick’
Dan Storey, MTV Screen

Icon Home Entertainment is pleased to announce the DVD release of the critically acclaimed comedy SMART PEOPLE on Monday 15th September.  The film features an all-star cast including Dennis Quaid (Vantage Point), Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City), Ellen Page (Juno) and Thomas Haden Church (Sideways, Spiderman 3).

Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) might be imperiously brilliant, monumentally self-possessed and an intellectual giant – but when it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he’s as downright flummoxed as the next guy.  His collegiate son (Ashton Holmes) won’t confide in him, his teenaged daughter (Ellen Page) is an acid-tongued overachiever who follows all too closely in dad’s misery-loving footsteps, and his adopted, preposterously ne’er-do-well brother (Thomas Haden Church) has perfected the art of freeloading.

A widower who can’t seem to find passion in anything anymore, not even the Victorian Literature in which he’s an expert, it seems Lawrence is sleepwalking through a very stunted middle age.  When his brother shows up unexpectedly for an extended stay at just about the same time as he accidentally encounters his former student Janet  (Sarah Jessica Parker), the circumstances cause him to stir from his deep, deep freeze, with often comical, sometimes heartbreaking, consequences for himself and everyone around him.

Featuring the screenwriting debut of highly acclaimed novelist Mark Poirier (Goats, Modern Ranch Living) and the feature film directorial debut of award-winning commercial director Noam Murro, SMART PEOPLE, is a darkly funny tale of a very bright family in way over their heads.  The film features an ensemble cast including Golden Globe nominee Dennis Quaid (Far From Heaven, Traffic), Golden Globe winner Sarah Jessica Parker (The Family Stone, Sex and the City), Academy Award® nominee Thomas Haden Church (Sideways), rising young stars Golden Globe nominee Ellen Page (Juno) and Ashton Holmes (A History of Violence).

The producers are Bridget Johnson (As Good As It Gets, Jerry Maguire), Michael Costigan (American Gangster, Brokeback Mountain), Michael London (Sideways, The Family Stone) and Bruna Papandrea (Better than Sex). The behind the scenes team includes director of photography Toby Irwin in his feature film debut, editors Robert Frazen (Smokin’ Aces) and Yana Gorskaya (Rocket Science), production designer Patti Podesta (Bobby, Memento) and costume designer Amy Westcott (The Squid and the Whale).  The score features the film composing debut of Nuno Bettencourt, best known as the former lead guitarist for the rock band Extreme. 

THE MAKING OF SMART PEOPLE

“We’ll figure this out.  We’re smart people.”
-- Janet (aka Sarah Jessica Parker)

Things are at a standstill in the Wetherhold household . . .until two events shatter the angst-ridden peace and change everything.  First, Lawrence’s adopted brother Chuck – a perpetual, overgrown adolescent – comes back into his life, looking for a place to crash while he gets his life together for the thousandth time.  And then, against all odds, Lawrence does the unthinkable:  he falls in love.  As chaos breaks out on all fronts, Lawrence’s brainy, blustering, well-armored defenses also began to break down – confronting him with the grouchy shadow of a man he has become and the parent, teacher and lover he once wanted to be. 

The story of the Wetherholds first came to life in the mind of Mark Poirier, an acclaimed young American novelist and short story writer who is just starting to break into screenwriting.  Poirier’s two critically praised novels, Goats and Modern Ranch Living, explored the humor and anguish hiding within the surreal fabric of modern life in the Southwestern U.S.

But with SMART PEOPLE, Poirier wanted to delve into another insular, quirk-filled world with which he is quite familiar:  academia. (Poirier has both attended and taught writing at Bennington College, Johns Hopkins University and Stanford, among others.)   It’s a realm that has been satirized and dissected in various ways throughout movie history – but Poirier was interested a different aspect of the academic universe:  its family life and the volatile emotions and darkly funny situations that often hide behind the overblown self-importance and heady anxieties of the intellectual world.  In the intellectually gifted Wetherholds he perceived a family at once funny and moving in their predicament of knowing so much – yet not really knowing one another at all.

The characters also cut close to the bone for Poirier.  “When I was a kid, people used to call me ‘Old Man,’ because I was very sort of grouchy and unhappy and a lot like Lawrence,” he explains.  “Vanessa, his daughter, is also sort of an extreme version of who I was in high school – someone who was achieving a lot, but for all the wrong reasons.  And Lawrence’s son James and brother Chuck are the people I always wished I could be, you know, to be that cool and to dare to do what you really loved.” 

Poirier’s screenplay soon attracted the devoted attention of leading producers Bridget Johnson, whose films include such major critical and box-office hits as Jerry Maguire and As Good As It Gets, and Michael Costigan, who broke into producing with Brokeback Mountain and this year executive produced American Gangster. They in turn sent the script to Noam Murro, a native-born Israeli and one of the ad world’s leading lights who had cut his creative teeth on award-winning spots for such companies as Nike and Adidas, and was named DGA Director of the Year in 2005.  Murro was ready to break out into feature films, and searching for a story that would hit home, when SMART PEOPLE did just that. 

“The story had a really specific and original voice, and when you read something with that strong of a voice, it’s hard to ignore,” says Murro.

It was the semi-sweet mix of the sardonic and the heartbreaking in the piece that really set it apart for Murro.  “I liked that it was about very serious themes, yet it addressed them very unassumingly,” he continues.  “There’s a wonderful poignancy to these characters, but at the same time they can be painfully funny.  It’s a story that invites you in without feeling too heavy.  Although it’s about a family that never really woke up from grief, the story doesn’t take itself too seriously and, therefore, it allows you to get closer to some kind of truth. These aren’t perfect characters – they’re all quite damaged in various ways, but for me, that was a great place to start.”

Early meetings confirmed that Murro and the producers were on the same page.  “Noam is extremely focused and really knows his own mind,” says Bridget Johnson.  “We were always very confident that he would bring a unique visual style to the film, and that he would be great with the characters and the actors.”

Murro and Poirier spent the next twelve months intensively collaborating on a new draft of the script, finding a very strong creative rapport. Meanwhile, Bruna Papandrea and Michael London of Groundswell Productions came on board.  London, who had previously brought Rex Pickett’s novel Sideways to the screen in an Oscar®-nominated production directed by Alexander Payne and who also produced the family-angst comedy The Family Stone, immediately responded to the story.

“It had all the elements that attract me – films about families and real people, that are both funny and sad,” he comments.  His work was funny, human and interesting, all the qualities needed for SMART PEOPLE.”

	About The Cast DENNIS QUAID (Lawrence Wetherhold) Throughout his career, Dennis Quaid has been featured in a diverse range of films culminating in an impressive body of work. In addition to receiving a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nomination for his outstanding performance in Far From Heaven, he received honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and The Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Actor of the Year. He was most recently seen in American Dreamz opposite Hugh Grant and Willem Dafoe, In Good Company with Scarlett Johansson and will soon be seen in the thriller Vantage Point opposite Matthew Fox and William Hurt. Quaid is known for his title role of a high school baseball coach in Disney’s The Rookie and his portrayal of a high-powered attorney in the critically acclaimed drama Traffic. His feature film credits include Yours, Mine and Ours, In Good Company, The Day After Tomorrow, The Alamo, Parent Trap and The Flight of the Phoenix. Quaid began acting in high school and studied theater at the University of Houston.  His career was launched with the role of an ex-football player in the film Breaking Away.  He went on to star in the films The Long Riders, Crazy Mama, Dreamscape, All Night Long and Enemy Mine. His impressive body of work also includes Savior, Wyatt Earp, the Oscar®-nominated space epic, The Right Stuff, Any Given Sunday, Something To Talk About, Everybody’s All American, Suspect, D.O.A and Flesh and Bone. SARAH JESSICA PARKER (Janet Hartigan) Sarah Jessica Parker continues to build upon a versatile career in film, television and theatre. SMART PEOPLE sees her reunited with producer Michael London, following on from the success of The Family Stone for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. More recently she was seen in the box-office success Failure to Launch with Matthew McConaughey. Parker is best known for her role as Carrie Bradshaw in the multi award-winning television series Sex and the City, for which she also served as executive producer. For this role, Parker was honored with an Emmy award for Best Actress, a Screen Actors Guild award and four Golden Globe awards for Best Actress. Not only did the series win an Emmy, it took home the Golden Globe Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for three consecutive years. Parker’s recent film credits include State and Main, ‘Til There Was You, Mars Attacks, If Lucy Fell, The First Wives Club, Ed Wood and Honeymoon in Vegas. Her earlier body of films includes Flight of the Navigator, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Footloose, First Born, Somewhere Tomorrow, Rich Kids and her role in LA Story opposite Steve Martin. She can be currently seen in the highly anticipated feature film adaptation of Sex and the City: The Movie. THOMAS HADEN CHURCH (Chuck Wetherhold) Thomas Haden Church received an Academy Award® nomination for the role of “Jack” starring opposite Paul Giamatti in Alexander Payne’s critically acclaimed film Sideways. He was also recognized for this role with a Best Supporting Actor award from the Broadcast Film Critics and the Independent Spirit Awards. Church was most recently seen in the blockbuster Spider-Man 3 in which he plays Spider-Man’s latest archenemy, “Sandman.”  He also starred opposite Robert Duvall in the award-winning western epic, Broken Trail, directed by Walter Hill. His outstanding performance won him an Emmy Award and also earned him Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations. His unique voice was heard in two family features, the remake of the children’s classic, Charlotte’s Web as “Brooks” the crow and Over The Hedge as “Dwayne.” ELLEN PAGE (Vanessa Wetherhold) Honored by the National Board of Review, Chicago Film Critics Association, and the Broadcast Critics Association, as well as a recent Golden Globe, SAG and Independent Spirit award nominee, Ellen Page has established herself as one of the most promising young actresses. Page is at the heart of “Juno,” Fox Searchlight's critically-acclaimed film about an offbeat teenager (Page) who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant and makes a surprising decision regarding her unborn child. Written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman, the film also stars Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, J.K. Simmons, Michael Cera and Allison Janney.   Page was received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her role in Juno.   In 2006, Page appeared as “Kitty Pryde” in the third installation of the X-Men franchise: “X-Men: The Last Stand.” She also recently starred in the title role of Bruce MacDonald's “The Tracey Fragments” and starred opposite Catherine Keener, in “An American Crime,” written and directed by Tommy O'Haver.  Other recent credits include the Canadian ensemble piece, “The Stone Angel” featuring Ellen Burstyn and directed by Kari Skogland; Alison Murray's “Mouth to Mouth” and Daniel MacIvor's ensemble piece "Wilby Wonderful.” As the lead in the 2005 independent feature, “Hard Candy,” directed by David Slade, Page won great praise for her tour de force performance as a 14-year-old girl who meets a 30-year-old photographer on the internet and then looks to expose him as pedophile. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. ASHTON HOLMES (James Wetherhold) Ashton Holmes’ film debut was A History of Violence, which received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture. The critically acclaimed David Cronenberg film also starred screen veterans Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello and William Hurt. Since then Holmes has completed work on Wind Chill for Revolution Studios, a supernatural thriller co-starring Emily Blunt, and Normal Adolescent Behavior for New Line, in which he starred opposite Amber Tamblyn.

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