Smart People Reviews

Smart People Reviews Overview

Smart People Good Reviews

  • The Hollywood Reporter: Smart People Review
    • "Reminiscent of the recent Sundance hit The Squid and the Whale in its depiction of a burnt-out academic and off-campus family disruptions, Smart People should attract similar adult audiences with the caveat that the smugness of some characters may be an initial turn-off."
  • The New York Times: Smart People Review
    • "The scenes of Lawrence in the classroom or in department meetings are among the most frighteningly, comically accurate such moments I have ever seen on film."
  • The Arizona Republic (4/5): Smart People Review
    • "It's not a revelatory film, but first-time director Noam Murro successfully creates a world you want to spend time in, even if it's a world marred by self-absorption and missed opportunities."
  • Time: Smart People Review
    • "There's nothing world shattering about Smart People. No one is ever going to call it a 'must see' movie. But it is a trim, intelligent, reasonably amusing little movie."

Smart People Neutral Reviews

  • Variety: Smart People Review
    • "...ends up less a dark comedy than a medium-gray one, the impact further muffled by its marinating in a tepid pool of generic soft-rock sounds."
  • Slate: I See Smart People
    • "Just when you're losing patience with the movie, it sneaks up on you with a poignant detail or a character-defining turn of phrase."
  • ReelViews (2.5/4): Smart People  WARNING: Pop-ups
    • "Like most simple indie character dramas, this one doesn't try to do too much. Still, there's a sense that it could have offered a more full platter had the scope been widened to better flesh out the secondary characters."
  • Film Threat (3/5): Smart People Review  WARNING: Pop-ups
    • "The best part of the film, other than segments of intelligent dialogue, has to be the interactions between Thomas Haden Church and Ellen Page. Both are phenomenal and make this extremely long movie (starts strong and then just drags along) more bearable."

Smart People Bad Reviews

  • Village Voice: Smart People: Deeply Ordinary
    • "It's almost impossible to bear the film ill will, as it makes a case for compassion and tries awfully hard to be awfully sweet. But then what?"
  • Premiere (1.5/4): Smart People Review
    • "An accumulation of meaningless family squabbles sutured together by what must be the most overwrought, intrusive score ever, Smart People should have hired a few."
  • Slant (1/4): Smart People Review
    • "a dreary amalgam of indie clichés made bearable only by Church's ability to wring mild humor from a slacker role schematically engineered for adorably sarcastic comedic relief."