Smart People, the directorial debut of filmmaker Noam Murro, landed in seventh place with a weekend total of $4.7 million.
By NATHAN BURSTEIN
A Hollywood film by an Israeli-born director debuted in the top 10 at the American box office over the weekend. Smart People, the directorial debut of filmmaker Noam Murro, landed in seventh place with a weekend total of $4.7 million, putting it well behind the weekend's top debut, Prom Night, a horror movie that finished at No. 1 with $22.7 million. Smart People marks the first feature film by Murro, who previously directed TV commercials. The film stars Dennis Quaid as a widowed English professor and Sarah Jessica Parker as his love interest. The movie also features supporting appearances by Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) and Ellen Page, an Oscar nominee earlier this year as the title character in Juno.
A second film with an Israeli connection also debuted with respectable results over the weekend. The Visitor, another drama about a middle-aged professor, took in $88,383 at four theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The film, which follows the professor's relationship with two illegal immigrants living in his New York City apartment, features Nazareth-born actress Hiam Abbass as the Syrian mother of one of the tenants. The actress, twice nominated for the Israeli Film Academy's Ophir Awards, can currently be seen in Israeli movie theaters in The Lemon Tree.
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