Smart People stars Dennis Quaid as Professor Lawrence Wetherhold - an imperiously brilliant, monumentally self-possessed intellectual giant. However when it comes to solving problems relating to love and family, he's completely lost! His teenaged daughter (Ellen Page) is an acid-tongued overachiever who follows in her father's misery-loving footsteps, whilst his adopted brother (Thomas Haden Church) has perfected the art of freeloading. 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.