影视听力 第39期:Smart People 聪明人

中年男子劳伦斯是一名教授维多利亚时期文学的老师，他心地很善良，但是给人的印象却尖酸刻薄，专横暴躁。妻子去世后，他独自抚养着两个孩子。因为他的臭脾气，儿子跟他变得越加疏远，女儿也整天闷闷不乐。劳伦斯对此痛心疾首，却也无可奈何。直到他爱上了自己以前的学生珍妮特，终于被迫开始改变自己，卸掉所有的伪装，以求得到自己心爱的人。

 对话文本:(系普特网友整理，文本只包括旁白影评部分，不包括电影原声。)

Smart People is a new comedy directed by Noam Murro, from the script by Mark Poirier. Its impressive cast includes Thomas Haden Church, Sarah Jessica Parker and Juno's Ellen Page, but it's all really anchored by Dennis Quaid who plays a middle-aged¹ English professor at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.

He's a widower² with two grown children and he is a first-class contrarian and curmudgeon³.

The character's name is Lawrence Wetherhold. He teaches Victorian literature. He's shopping around an unpublishable manuscript, attacking every other school of critical thought in the universe, and he's just basically a grouchy⁴ contrarian guy.

He has two grown children, one of them, who lives with him, his daughter, a high school senior, played by Ellen Page.

One day, his adopted brother, Chuck, that's Thomas Haden Church, shows up to sleep on his couch, try to borrow money, and just generally be a nuisance.

Also complicating⁵ Lawrence's life are the romance that he strikes up with a former student who is now an emergency room doctor. She's played by Sarah Jessica Parker.

Now the real charm of this movie is that the plot--it doesn't really matter as much as the characters. It's a wonderful collection of highly idiosyncratic, mildly ridiculous but very real and ultimately very touching⁶ and sympathetic people. And part of the point of Smart People is that, no matter how smart you are or think you are, you can still have trouble navigating⁷ the most basic decisions and choices in your life. And no matter how far along in life you get, you still face these basic questions--how are you gonna act, who are you gonna be, how are you gonna relate to the people around you, what is happiness gonna consist of for you. And what makes this movie, I think, unusually rich and subtle is that it faces these questions without predetermined answers, without a lot of sentimentality, and with a real feel for how people act, and talk and behave around each other.

1 middle-aged   

adj.中年的

参考例句：

• I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
• The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。

2 widower   

n.鳏夫

参考例句：

• George was a widower with six young children.乔治是个带著六个小孩子的鳏夫。
• Having been a widower for many years,he finally decided to marry again.丧偶多年后，他终于决定二婚了。

3 curmudgeon   

n. 脾气暴躁之人，守财奴，吝啬鬼

参考例句：

• The old curmudgeon found a new scapegoat and that let me out.那个老守财奴找到一个新的替罪羊，这样我就脱身了。
• The old curmudgeon was talking about the smothering effects of parental duty on creative lives.那些坏脾气的老人们喋喋不休于父母生儿育女之责任的妨碍性效应。

4 grouchy   

adj.好抱怨的；愠怒的

参考例句：

• Grouchy people are always complaining for no reason.满腹牢骚的人总是毫无理由地抱怨。
• Sometimes she is grouchy, but all in all she is an excellent teacher.有时候她的脾气很坏，但总的来说她还是一位好老师。

5 complicating   

使复杂化( complicate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• High spiking fever with chills is suggestive of a complicating pylephlebitis. 伴有寒战的高热，暗示合并门静脉炎。
• In America these actions become executive puberty rites, complicating relationships that are already complicated enough. 在美国，这些行动成了行政青春期的惯例，使本来已经够复杂的关系变得更复杂了。

6 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

7 navigating   

v.给（船舶、飞机等）引航，导航( navigate的现在分词 )；（从海上、空中等）横越；横渡；飞跃

参考例句：

• These can also be very useful when navigating time-based documents, such as video and audio. 它对于和时间有关的文档非常有用，比如视频和音频文档。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Vehicles slowed to a crawl on city roads, navigating slushy snow. 汽车在市区路上行驶缓慢，穿越泥泞的雪地。 来自互联网