by charby

Created on: July 26, 2009

The Pursuit of Happyness is a film about a man called Chris Gardener, who due to misfortune and one poor decision, has ended up very poor in San Francisco, living in a small apartment with an unhappy marriage. Chris's job is to sell Bone Density scanners to hospitals around the city, a business into which he invested his life savings, but the scanners don't sell as well as Chris was expecting, and so he and his family are finding it hard to make ends meet. Despite his difficult situation, Chris Gardener is a very clever man, and after a chance meeting with a stock broker, ends up following a dream and applies for an internship at a brokerage firm. The film tells the story of Chris trying to make it in the world of stock broking, and at the same time being a single father to his son Christopher, and trying to shift the last few of his scanners in order to make enough money to get buy.

The first thing I will say is that The Pursuit of Happyness is not a particularly happy film, and at many times I felt very sad and sympathetic for Chris and his situation. The title of the film reflects the overall idea of the movie very well: an unlucky man does all that he can to pursue and create happiness for himself and his young son. The film portrays the love between father and son very well (which isn't surprising, considering that the actors are father and son in real life), as well as how many parents will do whatever it takes to protect their children and to make them happy. Another recurring theme in the film is the huge difference between the rich and the poor in the San Francisco of 1981 (and, indeed, many other places at many other times), and the inherent unfairness of it all. In one scene, we see four laughing people whiz around a corner in a posh sports car, with the background of hundreds of homeless people queuing for rooms in a shelter for the night, knowing that most of them won't get to sleep there.

The acting in this film is top notch, and is exactly what I would expect from Will Smith, who plays Chris Gardener. Will Smith seems to be fantastic in most of the roles that I have seen him in, and in the Pursuit of Happyness he truly shines. His portrayal of Chris, who is an unlucky yet very intelligent and optimistic man, was utterly convincing, and I fear that there are few actors who could play this part as well as he did. Will Smith's son, Jaden Smith, plays the part of Chris's son very well, undoubtedly due his real life relationship with Will. Jaden Smith as Christopher was very cute, and much better than most child actors around at the moment. Thandie Newton also had a small part in this film, and although her role was fairly one-dimensional, she acted the part of a highly stressed mother very well.

In conclusion, I adored 'The Pursuit of Happyness' and would recommend it highly. Although much of the film is very sad and shows how hard life can be for many people, there is an overriding sense of hope throughout the whole film. Through a mixture of fantastic acting, writing and direction, 'The Pursuit of Happyness' has the potential to be a true cinematic classic.

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