'Smart People' Starring Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker & Ellen Page

Rita Mae Brown once said: "The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you."

For Professor Lawrence Wetherhold, (Dennis Quaid) it’s everyone else. He has been keeping it together for the last two years after his wife died - neither his students nor the other Professors like him, his children are a mystery to him and his book isn't getting published. This has all been placed in the section of Lawrence's brain marked 'unavoidable collateral damage' caused by living one's life at the top of the intellectual heap, and being constantly misunderstood. It's not HIS fault, it's everyone else's.

So when he parks his car sideways over two parking spaces, it is not his fault when it is towed away. It is not his fault that he has to scale a fence in order to retrieve his briefcase from the back of his impounded car. Nor is it his fault that he falls badly and lands in hospital.

Meanwhile, Lawrence's adopted brother Chuck, (Thomas Haden Church) has returned to freeload for a while. Since Lawrence's license has been revoked due to his fall, he must endure the empty promises of his adopted sibling to chauffeur him around for at least 6 months. It doesn't take a genius to work out that it's not going well for Lawrence.

Of course, this being a movie, it must go somewhere and the catalyst is love, of different kinds. A relationship clunks awkwardly into life between the still mourning Lawrence and Janet, (Sarah Jessica Parker) his Doctor and ex-student, which must account for at least half of the changes afoot. Chuck's presence accounts for the rest.

Produced by the people who brought us Sideways in 2004 and gave Wes Anderson a chance with his debut film Bottle Rocket, I walked in with preconceptions of watching a razor-sharp tragicomedy with depth, which it has, I'm glad to say, delivered.

Lawrence confides:  "Everyone in my life is going crazy." It sums up the character well, this coiled up, bearded, mess of creases who goes to pains to correct other's grammar. This film avoids the neatness of simple character changes, and of healing through confiding in others, self-help, life-lessons or whatever you care to Polyfil in the gaps. In bed with Janet for the first time, Lawrence asks, "Do you have any plans for Christmas?' It's one step forwards and two steps back sometimes, but throughout this delightful film there is a thread of optimism which the characters use to drag themselves along with.

It's a winning cast from start to finish too. Dennis Quaid plays the grouchy Professor superbly, and he is matched in performance by Ellen Page, (Juno) his daughter Vanessa, and bettered by the lolling armchair philosopher Thomas Haden Church. To the already uptight Lawrence after a particularly bad first date with Janet: "I take it by your presence here at 8:45pm you did not get laid?" It is a great skill to make a character brimming with unattractive qualities loveable, but, just as he did in Sideways, Church gets it just right.

Like the characters, it takes a while for this film to unwind enough to allow us to laugh - some scenes are laced with deep-seated family trauma, and you’re unsure whether to laugh or squirm, but the arrival of Chuck sparks the right dynamic in the house of subtext, and a great thinking comedy is born - rich, well-written and thoroughly enjoyable, it deserves to be watched.