It's too bad the script of "Smart People" isn't as good as its cast. Then it would be mentally engaging and entertaining.

The ironically titled romantic comedy is about a family of intellectuals who're textbook smart but dumb as dough when it comes to real life. At the center of the dysfunctional clan is Lawrence Wetherhold, a widower and disillusioned college professor played by Dennis Quaid. He's disdainful of his students and completely unwilling to engage with them.

He's equally detached from his own children: 17-year-old Vanessa (Ellen Page), a brilliant but friendless student and self-appointed woman of the house; and James (Ashton Holmes), a burgeoning poet who has wisely abandoned the household to live in a Carnegie Mellon University dorm. The movie is set in bleak wintertime Pittsburgh, which one character wryly dubs "the Paris of Western Pennsylvania."

These folks need some cheering up, not to mention a dose of social and emotional enlightenment, but it'll never happen if left up to them. Enter Chuck Wetherhold and Janet Hartigan, the agents of change in Mark Poirier's debut feature screenplay.

Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), Lawrence's adopted brother, moves in when the professor needs a driver after incurring a head injury. As an adoptee, Chuck escaped the family curse of intellectual snobbery. Though an underachiever by Wetherhold standards, he's loaded with common sense and immediately gets to the heart of the family malfunctions. Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker) is the emergency room doc who attends Lawrence when he's injured. She had a crush on Wetherhold while his student 10 years earlier, and it doesn't take long for the flame to be relit after they meet again.

The veteran Quaid is dependably convincing as the scruffy, grumpy, pompous professor and clueless father. Church, a gifted character actor who first attracted wide notice in "Sideways," thoroughly inhabits his role as the family's gray sheep. He's the most likeable character in "Smart People," partly because he's given many of the best lines.

Page's precocious character strongly echoes her "Juno," which will disappoint those who're eager to gauge the young actor's range. Parker is appealing and uncharacteristically restrained as Dr. Hartigan, but the profoundly underwritten part gives audiences little from which to form a full impression. It's even worse in the case of James, who barely registers as a presence.

Aside from its deficiencies in character development, "Smart People" -- like most romantic comedies -- suffers from a case of predictability. Viewers can expect a glimmer of light at the end of the Wetherholds' tunnel of misery.

On the upside, the script makes up in zingers what it lacks in structure. And the actors -- Quaid and Church in particular -- consistently transcend their material. A woman in the next row at Friday's first Valley View showing turned the movie into a snorey naptime, but it deserves better.