DVD Review: The Pursuit of Happyness

By Frankie Dees Mar 27, 2007, 13:21 GMT

In 1981, Chris Gardner was a struggling salesman in little needed medical bone density scanners while his wife toiled in double shifts to support the family including their young son, Christopher. In the face of this difficult life, Chris has the desperate inspiration to try for a stockbroker internship where one in twenty has a chance of a lucrative full time career. Even when his wife leaves him because of ...more

Will Smith hones down his considerable charms to play in the rags-to-riches tale of Chris Gardner, an intelligent man who found himself broke and homeless with his young son in early-Reagan era San Francisco while pursuing a career as a stockbroker. It is a film that is the epitome of terms like “up-lifting” and “heartwarming” which also happens to avoid most of the traps that these descriptive terms might suggest – “calculated” or “manipulative” comes to mind.

The story of Chris Gardner is, of course, a story tailor-made for Hollywood - a modern fairly tale that also just happens to be true. The film is based on Gardner’s autobiography of the same name which seems to have taken the place of a motivational speaker for a lot of readers. The book, like the film, preaches that if enough determination and heart is applied, than anything can be achieved.

‘Riding the Bus’ – We start the film off with Will Smith as Chris Gardner supplying some narration for us. He has a knack for breaking his life into handy-dandy little chapters that are usually self-explanatory and for this segment of his life, Chris is fighting his way through life by ‘Riding the Bus’ where he ekes out a meager financial existence by selling Bone-density Scanners to physicians across San Francisco where they are quick to point out that the machines are overpriced and unnecessary. These scanners are bulky, heavy-looking contraptions and as an observant homeless man points out, they look like a time machine with a handle. So that’s his lot in life right now – sitting at a bus stop or on a bus with a time machine in his lap hoping to God he can talk his way into selling one.

His wife, Linda (Thandie Newton) has been pulling double-shifts at a laundromat and her patience is wearing thin with their ever-increasing financial obligations. They spend money they can’t afford on their young son Christopher’s (Will Smith’s real-life son Jaden Christopher Syre Smith) daycare, a small Chinatown hole in the wall whose owners can’t muster up the energy to spell ‘Happyness’ right which is painted on the front of the daycare.

As Chris drags his time machine around town, fate parks right in front of him in the form of fancy red sports car. Two questions pop up as a man exits his car: What does he do and how does he do it? The man’s answer, he’s a stockbroker and that a college education isn’t required but being good with people and numbers is, sparks a dream for Chris and he makes a bid for an internship in a segment entitled ‘Being Stupid’ which most likely includes leaving his scanner in the care of guitar-strumming hippie chick rather than chasing his dream.

When Chris shares his dream of being a stockbroker with Linda, her lack of belief becomes front and center and retorts “…why not an astronaut?” With the stockbroker silliness and with bills stacking up, tensions flare and she leaves. Chris refuses to let her take their son and she probably realizes Christopher would be better off without her, so in weakness, she high-tails it to New York.

“Running” after a stolen scanner, running from an unpaid taxi cab and running to an internship interview all gain Christopher a highly sought after intern position in the firm of Dean Witter where 20 intern applicants are accepted and only one will eventually lead to a paying gig – a pretty big risk for a father and son just kicked out of their apartment. “Internship” follows his struggles of trying to compete with his fellow applicants while attempting to sell more scanners for living money all the while trying to maintain being a decent father.

No easy task but the scanners seem to be selling and life seems to be flowing decently in a motel room until “Paying Taxes” dips its greedy hand into the cookie jar and forces Chris and his son onto the streets where they’re forced to stay at homeless shelters, eat at soup shelters and particularly saddening, spend the night in a public restroom at a subway station. That he maintains his intern position at Dean Witter through all of this is a determination that should be (and indeed hI as) written about. This is, of course, an uplifting drama and I think I will ruin nothing by disclosing the name of the last chapter that Chris deemed for himself: happiness.

That the film contains some expected inaccuracies compared to the real life story (his son was actually two years old and not five as portrayed in the film and the internship did actually have a $1,000 pay stipend) is moot. The success of the film and of Chris Gardner is the fortitude and purity of Chris Gardner himself and how he applied himself to his goals. The film doesn’t create any racial obstacles that one might expect of a sometimes unkempt black man trying to break into the mostly white world of stock brokering but makes the film an achievement of one man unencumbered by any racial or political context. He applied himself diligently and intelligently and was not looked down upon regardless of what he happened to be wearing or the color of his skin.
 
Gardner hit his lows but he kept his self-pity to a minimum focusing on the stillness of any given moment. Maybe there were racial obstacles to overcome but Garner gave it no mind and as a result neither did the film. There are some scenes of Chris’ intern supervisor picking him out to do some menial tasks, but Chris doesn’t settle on any assumptions and focuses on what will propel him.

Will Smith portrays all this in what is probably his best performance to date. Smith is one of the most affable actors working today and it would have been easy for him to capitalize on his bottomless charisma to generate a completely different, sympathetic character that wouldn’t have been true to Gardner’s story. Here, he seems to funnel all that likeability into specific moments in the film when it’s called for while letting the story and character unfold as it should in the majority.

I may invite some flak for this but I was less impressed by his son’s performance. Yes, he’s a child actor and yes, he was fine in the film and didn’t detract. I can’t help but think of a film that certain scenes of ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ reminded me of: ‘The Bicycle Thief’. In some of the more harrowing scenes of father and son out on the streets and chasing down stolen scanners, ‘Pursuit’ definitely has shades of De Sica’s masterpiece with an admittedly wildly differing ending. Yet, looking at the performance of Enzo Staiola who was the exact same age as Jaden Smith while filming, shows a pretty wide disparity. Staiola who was plucked off the streets of postwar Rome to make the film shows a heartbreaking intuitiveness that Jaden Smith never comes close to.

That Enzo Staiola probably felt the streets in a way that Jaden Smith will never know is not Jaden’s fault but I felt compelled to make this observation seeing as how Jaden Smith’s performance got some acclaim which I’m just not seeing – call me a heartless bastard for calling issue with a child’s performance if you will but I calls ‘em like I see ‘em. While Will Smith and son had good chemistry, it didn’t approach the poignancy it could have had with a more instinctive actor.

Incidentally, ‘Pursuit’ is also directed by an Italian, Gabriele Muccino, whose previous film ‘Remember Me, My Love’ was apparently well liked by Will Smith who hand-picked him to direct this project. He works well with films of this type generating empathy but never dipping into unneeded melodrama. That he’s a foreigner capturing what’s essentially the American dream is also refreshing as he applies a different vision and focus to the story. He very rarely pulls away from Gardner’s story to show any context of the world around him, this is one-man’s story and Muccino wisely keeps the audience’s attention on Gardner.

The film is presented in 2.40:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. Ample special features include a commentary by Gabriele Muccino. I can’t imagine why the powers that be wouldn’t get us a Will Smith/Chris Gardner commentary. How cool would that have been? Maybe for the unrated version that include the correct spelling of Happyness.

A selection of featurettes are next starting with the 18-minute “Making Pursuit: An Italian Take on the American Dream” which deals with the selection of Muccino by Will Smith, his approach to the film and some on-set interviews with cast and crew. ‘Father and Son: On Screen and Off’ is a 7-minute detailing of Jaden Smith’s selection and role in the film although little Jaden himself doesn’t get an interview. Hmmm.

“The Man Behind the Movie: A Conversation with Chris Gardner”, a 13-minute featurette on the man himself, proves the most interesting as we get a small slice of the real-life Gardner who talks about meeting Will Smith, revisiting some of his old stomping grounds that bring back both good and bad memories as well as being on set everyday to offer guidance.

“Inside the Rubik’s Cube” is a featurette dedicated solely to the 80’s brainteaser fad which had a significant role in the film itself with a rather contrived scene that had Gardner complete the puzzle that leads to his internship interview. The scene was complete fiction but this little vignette lets us in on the origin and success of the little brainteaser that could.

Finally, we have Bebe Winans and Dave Koz’s “I Can” song inspired by the movie and a nice selection of trailers for upcoming theatrical and DVD releases from Sony Pictures.
There’s no doubt that ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ is somewhat of a vanity project for Smith but like the film, his heart is in the right place - with a performance that earns the audiences empathy without pulling too many strings.

The film is not perfect, the script has a few contrivances that could not be ignored (the Rubik’s cube scene was a plot device only dreamed up in Hollywood) and that ‘Pursuit of Happyness’ could be easily interchangeable with the ‘Pursuit of Money’ The film’s ultimate message may give some perfectly happy, non-millionaires pause, but the film remains an emotional experience with a protagonist that one can’t help but wish to succeed. 

The Pursuit of Happyness is now available at Amazon. It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a May 14th release. Visit the DVD database for more information.