The Pursuit of Happyness

Welcome to the sixth annual “Black History Movie Month.” I’m going to kick the month off with the 2006 inspirational, and another one of my favorites, “The Pursuit of Happyness.”

Belinda Elliott started her review out by saying, “Will Smith shines in The Pursuit of Happyness, a rags-to-riches tale about love, family, and pursuing the American Dream.”

Will Smith plays Christopher Gardner, a salesman struggling to make some money for his wife (Thandie Newton) and son (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith). As the family’s financial problems increase, his wife gets under so much pressure and leaves Chris and their son.

Gardner’s life goes from bad to worse as he and his son are evicted from their home and live on the streets of San Francisco. The father and son are forced to move around a lot finding a roof wherever they can find one, even spending a night in a subway bathroom.

Things start to look good for Gardner when he applies for an internship with a stock brokerage firm. Despite the internship being unpaid, one of the 20 interns will be chosen to stay with the company full-time. Elliott is right when she said, “The ambitious salesman battles insurmountable odds to make himself stand out from his competitors in the hopes of landing the position.”

Smith and his real-life son Jaden bring an emotional power to the characters they play. The serious role of Gardner is definitely a change for Smith, who is known for his less serious roles fighting aliens in the “Men in Black” trilogy and playing a matchmaking “date doctor” in the romantic comedy “Hitch.”

Elliott stated, “He tackles the role with a determined precision and turns out a spectacular performance, which is already generating talk of an Oscar. Though most scenes in the film have a very solemn feel, Smith’s cautious optimism and ambitious nature make us want to root for him to succeed. In a role that could have easily been played syrupy-sweet, Smith instead chooses to let his raw emotions shine through adding a layer of realism.”

His son, Jaden, proves to also be a natural. Playing a child whose life and economic background is so completely opposite from his own doesn’t look like a challenge for the kid actor. He looks like he has a true understanding of the character’s emotional impact and expresses it easily.

Newton also gives a noteworthy performance as Gardner’s wife who becomes so emotionally depressed she makes the hard decision to leave her son. Elliott said, “While promoting the movie recently, Newton said she wanted audiences to identify with her character’s profound pain rather than flippantly writing her off as an uncaring shrew. Her depiction of the troubled woman walks a fine line between the two.”

While the story is an inspirational story about a father’s love for his son and working hard to chase dreams, it is more than that. “Pursuit of Happyness” is also an emotional of the problem of homelessness in the current world. Maybe what makes the film so powerful is that it is based on a true story. The problems that Gardner goes up against are problems that many go through in the current world every day.

Anyone who knows of Gardner’s story, which was shown on the ABC news show 20/20 in 2003, will not be surprised at how the film ends. Elliott noted, “However, I found myself wanting to see more from the latter part of Gardner’s life. I guess that is why the film is titled The Pursuit of Happyness.” Though we do see what he turned out to be, we never get to see much of the happiness that came from Gardner’s hard work.

For this reason, the movie is not a feel-good movie that will leave you with the warm feeling. Instead, it is an emotional fictional show of a problem that is too real. Chances are that this is not a film that you will quickly forget.

Don’t read this review, go out and see this movie right now. This is one of those fictional slice-of-life movies that will inspire you to work as hard as Gardner did to achieve his dreams and make something of himself. In my opinion, this is one of Will Smith’s best works.

Now we have talked about that, stay tuned next week for the continuation of this year’s “Black History Movie Month.”