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House review of The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

I'm never sure how well Hollywood really understands poverty. It's fascinating to watch a film such as Pursuit of Happyness or Little Miss Sunshine, both of which deal with the borderline poverty of the lower-middle class. These are not the homeless digging for food in garbage cans, but they are the folks who are one step away from homelessness. If anything goes wrong - say, if your tax bill is too high, or your bone density scanner is stolen, you go from getting by to not getting by. In films about struggling families, those realities are pretty well represented. And yet, this is the same culture that encouraged Paris Hilton to call Governor Schwartzenegger and ask him to please not send her to jail for violating her own drunk-driving parole. How can such insight and such self-centered tantrum throwing exist side by side?

However it happens, we who do not live in southern California are fortunate that the good stuff sometimes gets into the films, and we can always turn the stupid stuff off. The central conflict in The Pursuit of Happyness revolves around poverty; that skin-of-your-teeth, paycheck-to-paycheck poverty that can't be fixed by working harder or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Chris Gardner is a full time salesman of portable bone-density scanners; an interesting invention of the early 1980's that nobody wants to buyand he and his wife (or girlfriend - was never quite clear on that relationship) are doing everything they possibly can to make it. Adding to the complexity of their life is the presence of a young son, Christopher, whose day care bill and schedule create the kind of one-more-thing difficulties that push his parents to the edge.

Chris discerns an opportunity to make things better for his family when he learns about an internship at the investment firm Dean-Whitter. But it's an unpaid internship. Fine, perhaps, for Stanford MBA's living off Daddy's credit cards, but a completely unreasonable expectation for people who are one tax bill away from the street.

And yet, Chris wants it. He wants something better for his bitter wife/girlfriend who cannot bear up under the burdens of poverty. And he desperately wants something better for his son, who is already suffering under long hours in day care and substandard education. It's this fierce desire to do better by his son that keeps Chris going under almost impossible circumstances.

But under those things, there is also Chris' desire to do better by himself. We see in his conversations with Christopher that learning and education are important to him. We hear stories of how smart Chris was in high school, how he earned the nickname "Ten-Gallon Head"� for all the information he kept in his. And underlying all the other events of his life is a dissatisfaction with what he has become, and how far from what he once wanted his life has drifted.

The cast in this film carried off the story with depth and empathy. Even when Chris makes some stupid choices, even when he snaps at Christopher, even when he isn't listening to his wife/girlfriend like he should, we are sympathetic to him and to his cause. Will Smith's acting is straightforward and relatable, and as always, likeable. In fact, I might even say that we like Chris so much because we like Will Smith so much. Besides the sideburns and the navy polyester suits, he seems very much like the Smith we know and love in many other films. It's okay, since we do know and love him, but it makes it hard to know whether we have really come to know Chris Gardner.

Young Jaden Smith, Will's real-life son, plays Christopher with freshness, innocence, and the long-suffering wisdom that only children can attain. He deals with their difficulties with more peace and aplomb than his father does. He avoids the trap that so many child parts offer their young actors; that of being props around which the adults act. Jaden Smith pulls his weight.

In the end, this film leaves the viewer equal parts inspired and cynical. We watch Chris work and struggle and fight fiercely for his dream, and we are filled with admiration and respect for him. We can't entirely make ourselves give up on the dream that hard work and dedication pays off, and it's extremely satisfying to watch it happening. But the other part of us has to live in 2008, and I am not at all sure this story could happen now. Does Dean-Whitter still take interns without a college degree? Well, Morgan-Stanley, as they are now (I have no idea what happened to either Dean or Whitter). The fact is, contemporary reality is harsher, and in this day and age, the Chris Gardners of America are screwed. As one friend put it, the age of American miracles is over. To be fair, the movie never pretends to be a fairy tale for our time. All it does is tell one man's story, the story of a victory won a long time ago in an America far far away. It's a good story, and I'm happy for Gardner. But no matter how many good stories Hollywood puts out, most people never do get that miracle.

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Film Rating: 5.6/10 (26 votes cast)

Reviewed by Elessar
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