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When it comes to producer Michael London, his formula for success is simple: Find a story about a depressed teacher with a nonexistent love life and a failing writing career, cast Thomas Haden Church as his fun-loving but irresponsible sidekick and become immersed in their world of misadventure and dark humor.

Hey, it worked in Sideways - why not give it another shot?

Adapted from a script penned by fellow newcomer Mark Poirier, commercial director Noam Murro's first feature, Smart People, is fashioned very much in the same style as Sideways. A fascinating take on the trials and tribulations of a pretentious father attempting to reconnect with his estranged family while finding new love, Smart People is an often bleak, sometimes hopeful and perpetually charming effort.

Dennis Quaid (Vantage Point) plays Lawrence Wetherhold, an English professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Speaking in a drawling monotone and making little effort to know his students, Lawrence isn't exactly the most popular professor on campus. His self-indulgent tendencies are even filtering into his writing, as his latest novel has been wholeheartedly rejected by every publisher. With Lawrence, it doesn't matter if he expresses himself in print or verbally - he is simply a man who always seems to choose the wrong words.

A widower, Lawrence lives with his daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page, Juno), a high school student who spends so much time concentrating on her grades that she has become a social outcast. His son, James (Ashton Holmes, A History of Violence), lives in a dorm at Carnegie Mellon, but the distance between the two goes far beyond the few miles that physically separate them.

After a trauma-induced seizure keeps Lawrence from legally driving for six months, the family is joined by his free-loading adopted brother, Chuck (Church, back in his comfort zone after delving into action film in the dreadful Spider-Man 3), who decides to drive for Lawrence in exchange for room and board.

The family roles - the strict father, playful uncle, surly son and overachieving daughter - are all familiar. Once they are fleshed out, they turn out to be more than they initially appear. Vanessa, for instance, wears the mask of an overly confident demeanor, but time exposes a vulnerable figure worn down by carrying the responsibilities of both a daughter and a wife in her broken home.

Lawrence and his family are tossed a curveball when he is treated at the hospital by one of his former students, Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker, Failure to Launch). Realizing that she had a crush on him dating back to her collegiate days, Lawrence decides to ask her out for a "face-to-face conversation." Needless to say, he is a bit awkward on his first date since his wife's death, but soon it becomes evident that there may be an engaging personality lying deep beneath his conceited persona.

The humor throughout Smart People is unassuming, as Murro draws the laughs by focusing on the peculiar - but often relatable - aspects of his colorful characters. While Quaid is excellent in his against-type role as the amusingly quirky sociopath, it is Page and Church who stand out while bringing their impeccable comedic timing to the table. Meanwhile, Nuno Bettencourt, a guitarist for the band Extreme, provides a fitting score that further enhances Smart People's indie film ambiance.

The character portraits painted by Murro aren't quite as convincing as those in Sideways, a film which raised the bar for dark romantic comedy. Though that flaw will likely keep Smart People from standing above the crowd as one of the year's elite films, Murro is still a master at handling his movie's low-key humor and absorbing narrative, and this film has set him on the way to becoming one of the more promising new faces to keep on eye on in Hollywood for years to come.

tfloyd1@umd.edu

RATING: 4 STARS OUT OF 5

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