'Smart People' makes for yet another smart family comedy

"Smart People" is the kind of small, cranky family and/or friendship comedy that has been busting out since "Sideways," often exceeding expectations, occasionally inspiring a backlash, and sometimes not. In this case, the lineage feels easy to trace because of the appearance of Thomas Haden Church as a charming reprobate, but there's plenty to link it to other recent comedies of measured breakdowns and bearable angst like "The Squid and the Whale," "The Savages" and "Little Miss Sunshine."

Selfish, self-absorbed, pompous, condescending and crabby professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is a jerk for the ages. A tenured professor of Victorian literature at Carnegie Mellon, he sleepwalks through his classes, can't be bothered to get to know his students (he never remembers a name) and takes his adoring, howlingly lonely teenage daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page) completely for granted. His excuse: His beloved wife died years ago, and he still can't bring himself to donate her clothes. (For another take on the lonely widowed college professor, see also Tom McCarthy's "The Visitor.")

His brother Chuck (Church), on the other hand, whom Lawrence always insists on pointing out is adopted, is a pot-smoking, unemployed good-for-nothing who notices people, listens to them and tries to meet their needs while, naturally, making sure that his are met first. Chuck shows up at his brother's house on the same day that Lawrence's arrogance and insensitivity lands him in the hospital having suffered a seizure after a fall. When the ER doctor orders Lawrence not to drive, Chuck sees an opening and offers himself up for duty. In no time, he's ensconced in the guest bedroom and in Lawrence and Vanessa's lives.

Like her father, Vanessa is brilliant but socially clueless. She's learned to emulate his condescension and contempt for people he doesn't perceive to be as smart as he is, and as a result, she eats alone at school every day. Her brother, James (Ashton Holmes), a student at Carnegie Mellon, tries to distance himself from his universally disliked sister and father. He's dating a girl on the committee to select the head of the English department, a position Lawrence wants but no one wants him to have.