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| Editorial Reviews: |
|  |  | | Will Smith stars in the inspirational true story of Chris Gardner, a San Francisco salesman who's struggling to make ends meet. When his girlfriend Linda (Thandie Newton) walks out, Chris is left to raise their 5-year-old son Christopher (Jaden Smith) on his own. Chris' determination finally pays off when he lands an unpaid internship in a brutally competitive stockbroker-training program, where only one in twenty interns will make the cut. But without a salary, Chris and his son are evicted from their apartment and are forced to sleep on the street, in homeless shelters and even behind the locked doors of a metro station bathroom. With self- confidence and the love and trust of his son, Chris Gardner rises above his obstacles to become a Wall Street legend. | | | | A heartwarming film that demonstrates how good, hard-working people can become homeless almost overnight, Pursuit of Happyness is a tour-de-force showcase for Will Smith, who convincingly portrays a down-and-out dad trying to better his family's life. Smith, who usually is cast in effortlessly boyish roles (Men in Black, Independence Day), is wonderful in the film--even in the scenes that shamelessly tug at viewers' heartstrings. Based on the true-life story of Chris Gardner, a San Francisco salesman forced at times to shelter his young son (played by Smith's adorable look-alike offspring Jaden Smith) in a men's room, there is little suspense to the film in terms of Chris' outcome. (His story and eventual success a successful and wealthy Chicago businessman was well-publicized on the newsmagazine show 20/20.) And let's face it, Hollywood's not too keen on making feel-good movies with unhappy endings. The beauty (and suspense, to a certain extent) of this film is in the way the story is told. Though he is constantly rushing around to get to appointments and pick up his child, things do not happen quickly for Chris. When he accepts an internship with a prestigious stock brokerage firm, there's a catch: The position is unpaid, suitable more for trust-fund children than single parents with no other source of income. In many scenes, the viewer panics along with Chris, wondering how he's going to feed his child. While Smith and his son, Jaden, share many tender moments together, Thandie Newton has the thankless role of playing Chris' shrill wife, who deserts her family early in the film. It's not a particularly challenging part for the talented actress, and her departure doesn't impact the storyline much at all. As for the movie's misspelled title, it's inspired from a scene in the film. (Seeing a mural drawn by the children at a daycare center, Chris points out to the proprietor that "happiness" is spelled incorrectly. She notes that it doesn't matter how the word is written--just that the kids have it.) With Pursuit of Happyness, Smith has come out of his safety zone and, in turn, ends up playing his most heroic role to date. --Jae-Ha Kim
Extras from The Pursuit of Happyness
Behind the scenes footage of
The Pursuit of Happyness
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Chris Gardner:
"On Being Studied By Will Smith"
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Will Smith And Jaden Smith: "On Will Always Being In Character"
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Beyond The Pursuit of Happyness on Amazon.com 
More Films Starring Will Smith | 
More Films About Fathers & Sons | 
The Book |
Stills from The Pursuit of Happyness (click for larger image) | |
| Custom Reviews: | |
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| | I loved it. The only thing I wish it included is more of the portion of Chris Gardeners life as a millionaire. I think the director (from italy) was right: we Americans don't know how lucky we are to live here. People died to give us this economic and social freedom. Now we gripe about having to pay for our own (gasp) medicine, as if we are entitled to it.
| | | This is such a beautiful true story, Will Smith does a Terrific job. I totally recommend it.
| | Hard work and perserverance | |
| | This movie is very inspiring and pushes one to work hard in their own lives.
| | Very, very fictionalized account of true Story | |
| | I hate to go against the wind here, but this movie was too tense, too extreme. This movie reminded me of the tribulations of Job in the Bible. The movie's portrayal Chris Gardner's pain and hardships never ended until the final 5 minutes of the movie.
Was this "really how it was", this extreme. So many questions: Questions like how did he afford to pay for the childcare expenses when he had no income, yet had to stay at a shelter? Did he really have to leave work early to pick up his child at daycare in an attempt to get to the shelter before it closed at five o'clock?
More obvious questions like: Why would he allow his child to go thru such foreseeable hardships when he is offered a reprieve from the boys mother. Let her take him for awhile, at least until he's established enough with an income and a place to live. No, instead, he just says, "you know you can't take care of him", so she leaves, no contact with the child for presumably at least 6 months.
One obstacle after another, ninety minutes of being abused, humiliated, degraded, all while caring for a five-year child. This was like water torture having to watch the pain one man is enduring. However, I couldn't help but think was his misfortunes time and time again overdone, way overdone. Did he really have his 5-year-old child with him while he had no income for six months and lived in various shelters? Was his income really completely dependent upon selling medical equipment that nobody wanted, and that two were taken from him, which he did recover after great misfortune. Were the horrendous misfortunes, one after another really true? If they were, how did he not go insane? Well, it turns out no. Most of it was made up-"Hollywoodized'. In real life, things were not as bad as portrayed in the movie, thank goodness. The greatest problem encountered by Will Smiths character in the movie was that he was not given a salary while training at Dean Witter. So his only source of income was selling his last few pieces of medical equipment. This was not enough to sustain him and his son in any stable housing, which lead him to seek out various shelters. Well, after doing a little research about the real Chris Gardner, it appears most of what was portrayed in the movie is not true; it's a greatly fictionalized account. He was given a stipend at Dean Witter of $1000 a month while training, and most important he didn't' have his child with him while he was training with them, so all the rushing to shelters before five o'clock with his son didn't happen. So many examples of the truth being stretched to make a more compelling drama, but for me, it was way overboard. Mr. Gardner's true-life story is a very compelling one. I have not read his book, only synopsis of it. However one thing about his true life is apparent, he was not a Saint, yet the movie goes out of its way to almost portray him as one. He is not a bad man either. He is just a man, a man who had many hardships and disadvantages in his life, all of which he did overcome and become a great success. As stated however, the movie seems to want to go out of it's way to show a Saintly genius, one with the ability to overcoming one tragedy after another, endure more one pain, one more humiliation, one more unbelievable mishap after another, all the way to the last five minutes of the movie. Then, only in the last one-minute of the movie, right before the ending credits do we read a few lines that now he is a millionaire. Everything's ok. I would have been more pleased with the real life story of Mr. Gardner's life, not the emotional rollercoaster we were deliberately put through for ninety minutes. I'm sure it's a great success story, and I'll be happy to watch the real story if it ever comes out.
As a side note, Will Smith's portrayal was excellent; his real life son did a great job in his film debut. Every actor was good; all the sets were excellent, just that little thing about the story went too far.
| | Moving and inspiring, even if nonreplicable | |
| | First, let me just quickly say that the acting, plot construction, scenery, and other standard elements are very good in this movie. There are no significant flaws which threaten to ruin the movie.
Turning to the story itself, as most people know, this movie is "inspired by a true story" involving a man who faces enormous financial hardships, to the point where he and his son wind up homeless. The problems he encounters are so relentless that it becomes almost too painful to watch. But he's gifted at math, has good interpersonal skills, and works incredibly hard, so he eventually winds up with a nice job in a San Francisco financial firm, and later goes on to start his own firm and become a multi-millionaire.
A story like this will naturally appeal to an American audience because it taps in to the meritocratic notion that the American dream is accessible to most of us if we're willing to work hard and make sacrifices. But we can question how much this moving and inspiring story can really serve as a model for the masses. I would say not much. In a country of 300 million people, you'll always be able to find stories like this, but they're the exception, not the norm, and of course that's what makes this story worthy of a movie. Moreover, the main character clearly had abilities and a work ethic far beyond the norm, so it took very special strengths to prevail over such especially bad luck. But I do think this story illustrates the upper limits of what's possible, and most people can draw the lesson that working hard will still provide at least some benefit, even if the benefit falls short of one's ultimate dreams.
Another lesson which is perhaps equally important is that children may value and need our love and attention more than the material resources we can provide. That's certainly the case in this story, and I suspect that this can be generalized to most children. Something to consider for dads (and moms) who are preoccupied with putting in long hours away from home in order to make a lot of money ...
Highly recommended to anyone looking for an uplifting story, even if few people can replicate an ending as happy as this one.
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