{"id":429,"date":"2006-12-16T00:34:19","date_gmt":"2006-12-16T04:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=429"},"modified":"2009-09-10T22:14:57","modified_gmt":"2009-09-11T02:14:57","slug":"the-pursuit-of-happyness-2006-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/?p=429","title":{"rendered":"The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) &#8211; Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_430\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-430\" class=\"size-full wp-image-430\" title=\"pursuithappyness\" src=\"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/pursuithappyness.jpg\" alt=\"Will Smith gets self-respect the old-fashioned way in &quot;The Pursuit of Happyness&quot;: He earns it\" width=\"450\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/pursuithappyness.jpg 450w, https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/pursuithappyness-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-430\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Will Smith gets self-respect the old-fashioned way in &quot;The Pursuit of Happyness&quot;: He earns it<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h1><em><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><span style=\"font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #003300;\">Life<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><em><span style=\"color: #003300;\">\u00a0of a Salesman<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n<p>[xrr rating=4.5\/5]<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Pursuit of Happyness.<\/em>\u00a0Starring Will Smith, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, Thandie Newton, Brian Howe, James Karen, Dan Castellaneta, Kurt Fuller, Takayo Fischer, Mark Christopher Lawrence, and Geoff Callan. Screenplay by Steve Conrad. Music by Andrea Guerra. Director of Photography, Phedon Papamichael. Edited by Hughes Winborne. Directed by Gabriele Muccino. (Columbia Pictures, 2006, Color, 116 minutes. MPAA Rating: PG-13.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Actor Will Smith shines in his portrayal of a real-life, self-made investment broker in this emotionally exhausting but ultimately inspiring biopic.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the 1981 recession, and Chris Gardner struggles to make ends meet as a self-employed medical-equipment salesman who has a family to support in San Francisco. With a stack of bone-density scanners gathering dust in his efficiency apartment kitchen, and with wife Linda (Thandie Newton) pulling double shifts at a neighborhood laundry, he can barely pay the bills. Chris spends his days shuttling his five-year-old son, Christopher, to day care (the film\u2019s title refers to Chris\u2019s constantly nagging the owner of the day-care center to correct the word\u2019s spelling on a mural there) and trying to hawk his expensive equipment to doctors and hospitals with shrinking budgets.<\/p>\n<p>Looking for a way out of his dead-end job, Chris spots a well-heeled businessman (Geoff Callan) parking a red Ferrari and quizzes him. \u201cMan, I\u2019ve got two questions for you: What do you do, and how do you do it?\u201d The man informs him he\u2019s a stock broker with the prestigious Dean Witter Reynolds firm and that he\u2019s \u201cgood with numbers and people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly, Chris sees his life as it\u00a0<em>could<\/em>\u00a0be. Watching the men and women exiting the brokerage house, he reflects, \u201cThey all looked so damned\u00a0<em>happy<\/em>\u00a0to me,\u201d and wonders, \u201cWhy couldn\u2019t\u00a0<em>I<\/em>\u00a0look like that?\u201d After impressing one of the senior brokers (Brian Howe) by solving a Rubik\u2019s Cube puzzle during a taxicab ride, Chris applies for a Dean Witter internship program and lands an interview.<\/p>\n<p>However, all that Linda can see in Chris\u2019s decision to become a broker is a pipe dream. \u201cSalesman to intern is backwards,\u201d she protests. Unable to handle the stress of the landlord breathing down their necks for back rent, she leaves, forcing Chris to raise their son alone. As if that weren\u2019t enough, on the night before his big interview with Dean Witter, the police show up at his doorstep to arrest him for a pile of unpaid parking tickets.<\/p>\n<p>After spending the night in the police lockup, Chris\u2014disheveled, wearing jeans and a tank-top undershirt\u2014barely makes it to his interview on time. \u201cI could not think of a lie bizarre enough,\u201d he explains awkwardly to his skeptical interviewers. \u201cI just got out of jail for unpaid parking tickets and my wife left me.\u201d One asks him: \u201cWhat if a man walked in here with no shirt, and I gave him a job?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chris replies good-naturedly: \u201cHe must\u2019ve had on some\u00a0<em>really nice\u00a0<\/em>pants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He lands a spot in the internship program, not by bluffing his way out of the awkward situation, but through his forthright honesty and sense of humor.\u00a0\u00a0 However, there\u2019s a catch\u2014the internship is unpaid and will last six months. Even after the program ends, there are no guarantees: only one intern out of twenty will be hired by the firm.<\/p>\n<p>Already having moved with his son into a hotel room to save money, Chris is faced with the dilemma of either trying to provide fully for his son right away or taking the<em>chance<\/em>\u00a0that after a half-year he\u2019ll land a salaried position as an investment broker. Figuring that he can make rent and keep Christopher in day care if he can sell just one bone-density scanner a month after work and on weekends, he decides to go for it.<\/p>\n<p>But his troubles are just starting. When the IRS seizes his checking account for back taxes, Chris and his boy are evicted from their hotel room. With only the clothes on their backs, they are turned out on the streets. But whether sleeping on subways, buses, or in luncheonette booths, Chris never leaves Christopher\u2019s side or reveals a hint of discouragement.<\/p>\n<p>As much as\u00a0<em>The Pursuit of Happyness<\/em>\u00a0is the story of Chris Gardner\u2019s struggle to succeed in the business world, it\u2019s also the story of a father\u2019s love for and commitment to his child. At their lowest point\u2014forced to spend the night sleeping on the floor of a men\u2019s room in a train station\u2014he never lets on to his boy that their state is desperate, even as he\u2019s about to go to pieces. Much like the Roberto Benigni character in 1997\u2019s\u00a0<em>Life Is Beautiful,\u00a0<\/em>Chris conceals the indignity of their situation from his youngster by playing a make-believe game of hiding from cavemen and dinosaurs. The scenes between father and son are among the movie\u2019s most natural, convincing, and genuinely moving, no doubt because of the bond between Will Smith and his real-life son Jaden, who plays Christopher.<\/p>\n<p>At one point, while shooting hoops at a neighborhood playground, Chris realizes the power that an adult\u2019s words can have on a child. He makes a self-effacing quip, telling Christopher not to bother spending too much time working on his game because he himself was never any good at basketball, either. The boy puts down the ball and slumps in resignation. Angry at himself for his own thoughtlessness, Chris counsels his son:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0Don\u2019t ever let someone tell you you can\u2019t do something! Not even me!. . . .You got a dream, you gotta protect it! People can\u2019t do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can\u2019t do it. You want something? Go get it.\u00a0<em>Period<\/em>!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What makes this movie ring so true is that Chris Gardner heeds his own advice, even though he seems trapped in an inescapable maze. Constantly down but never out, he refuses to slink away and abandon his dream. His quest becomes a frantic chase: rushing to catch buses, arriving late at sales calls, picking up his son from daycare, tracking down a bone scanner that some hippies stole from him, securing a place to sleep in a homeless shelter. But homelessness is never depicted\u2014or regarded\u2014as more than a transient condition. And Chris Gardner is <em>always<\/em> in transit: everywhere he goes, he\u2019s running. Indeed, I believe Smith spends more screen time running than Dustin Hoffman did in the 1976 thriller\u00a0<em>Marathon<\/em><em>\u00a0Man.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Unlike the anti-business messages conveyed by so many of today\u2019s movies, this film depicts the business world as gruelingly tough, but ultimately fair\u2014even liberating. Most refreshing are the scenes showing Chris in the Dean Witter internship program. I cheered to myself as he applied his quick head for numbers, shaving seconds off \u201ccold calls\u201d by not hanging up between phone conversations and by going straight to the top of a company\u2019s contact directory rather than starting at the bottom, as is customary.<\/p>\n<p>In many respects,\u00a0<em>The Pursuit of Happyness<\/em>\u00a0reminded me of business-themed comedies from the 1980s, such as\u00a0<em>Trading Places<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Working Girl<\/em>, but without the bitter \u201cgetting even with the boss\u201d side plots. If anything, the movie extols the productive nature of the stock market while regarding\u00a0<em>government<\/em>\u00a0as the parasite. While talking with a prospect who wants a retirement fund that yields high returns but low taxes, Gardner quips, \u201cSo, basically, you don\u2019t want nobody\u2019s hands in your pockets but your own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Italian director Gabriele Muccino\u2014best known for his 2001 romantic comedy\u00a0<em>The Last Kiss<\/em>\u2014adapts his lighthearted style effortlessly to this somewhat weighty story, his first American film. Meanwhile, director of photography Phedon Papamichael exploits the steep streets of San Francisco and Oakland as a metaphor to capture the ups and downs of Chris\u2019s world. In the Dean Witter offices, Papamichael\u2019s camera moves left-to-right, visually conveying the business world\u2019s virtues of drive, economy, and progression. For his part, Will Smith digs deep into his dramatically demanding role, giving his most forceful performance to date. Is this really the same easy-going guy who starred in \u201cThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air\u201d and\u00a0<em>Men in Black<\/em>?<em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As for the real-life Chris Gardner, today he is a multi-millionaire who runs an investment firm in Chicago. Speaking about this stirring, feel-good movie (which, ironically, is at times also one of the\u00a0<em>bleakest<\/em>\u00a0movies I\u2019ve ever seen), Gardner hailed the ability of Smith and director Muccino to capture life \u201cwhen the whole world tells you how small you are, but you see how big you really can be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And big he is.\u00a0<em>The Pursuit of Happyness\u00a0<\/em>is one of the most positive and heroic portraits of a businessman that I\u2019ve ever seen. The choices that Chris Gardner makes under the most trying of circumstances reveal his indomitable, optimistic resolve and character. Smith, who produced as well as starred, first seized upon the idea of making this movie after seeing an ABC \u201c20\/20\u201d<em>\u00a0<\/em>profile of Gardner. \u201cChris represents the American Dream,\u201d he remarked. \u201cThe promise of America is such a great idea. Nowhere else in the world could a Chris Gardner exist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And, I might add, nowhere else in the world could a movie\u00a0<em>honoring<\/em>\u00a0a Chris Gardner exist.<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Black &amp; White Magazine<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">,\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">,\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">, the New York\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Post<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">,\u00a0<\/span><\/em><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span><em><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">(Japan)<\/span><\/em><em><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">,\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">,\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Top Producer<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Times<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: normal; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">The New Individualist<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #003366; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 Life\u00a0of a Salesman [xrr rating=4.5\/5] The Pursuit of Happyness.\u00a0Starring Will Smith, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, Thandie Newton, Brian Howe, James Karen, Dan Castellaneta, Kurt Fuller, Takayo Fischer, Mark Christopher Lawrence, and Geoff Callan. Screenplay by Steve Conrad. Music by Andrea Guerra. Director of Photography, Phedon Papamichael. Edited by Hughes Winborne. Directed by Gabriele [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,35,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biopics","category-dramas","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}