(2006, 117 min) A film about an everyman who loses his business and his wife but will not let go of his son, who becomes homeless but turns it around and founds a multimillion-dollar enterprise, can be expected to float in a sea of saccharine sentimentality and Pollyanna positivism. The Pursuit of Happyness is saved from maudlin excess for two reasons: It's based on a true story, and it's elevated by the acting chops of Mr. Smith. Both Mr. Smiths.
It's 1981, and the effects of Reaganomics are just hitting the country. Chris Gardner (Will Smith) has sunk his life's savings into bone density scanners, expensive and unnecessary medical equipment he's having trouble selling. His wife Linda (Thandie Newton) is working backbreaking double shifts at a dead-end job and the family is barely staying afloat. Chris didn't meet his own father until he was 28 years old, and he is determined to be the father he never had; his bonds to his 5-year-old son Christopher (Will Smith’s real-life son Jaden Smith) are forged in steel. Chris learns of an internship program at a stock brokerage and decides to go for it, fitting in sales meetings to unload his remaining bone scanners. Back rent is due, parking tickets are accumulating on the windshield, and Linda can no longer cope. She moves back East, leaving Christopher in her husband’s care.
Chris and Christopher scrape by and things seem to be looking up, when Dad is hit with garnishment for back taxes. With $21 and change in his pocket and no safety net in sight, Chris and Christopher spend nights in subway men’s rooms and shelters. The film successfully captures the desperate nature of tenuous circumstances in which missing a bus means no roof over your head that night. But through it all, Chris never loses sight of his goals and never falters in his determination. Smith, father and son, assay their roles with charm and grit and an appreciated absence of schmaltz.
Note: Many of the extras were actual homeless people. Also, the man walking past Chris and Christopher at the end of the movie is the real Chris Gardner.
© TLA Entertainment Group
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