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The Pursuit of Happyness
Rated PG-13 for some language;
Although we're told Chris (Will Smith) has finished first in every class of which he was part, and although he's very bright, very energetic, very personable and unfailingly polite and positive, he cannot make a living selling bone-density scanners in San Francisco in 1981.
He and live-in Linda (Thandie Newton), who also works, and their son, Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, Will's biological son), are behind in every bill payment, though it's never clear why, given the behavior we observe.
He talks his way into an unpaid competitive six-month internship as a stockbroker at Dean Witter Reynolds because the most productive person among the 20 interns will be hired.
As developed in the screenplay by Steve Conrad, "The Pursuit of Happyness" is a color-blind variation on "Kramer vs. Kramer," with father struggling to provide for son and sliding steadily backwards financially.
Director Gabriele Muccino's movie is heartfelt, even if it exhausts its mantras "happy" and "happyness" -- purposefully misspelled in the title -- and its metaphorical use of a Rubik's cube to suggest that perseverance rewards pluggers.
Oh, and it's amusing to hear the long-discarded phrase "I'll bet you what."
The problem is that Chris' story, as compressed and reinvented for family audiences -- its brief use of crude language is clinical -- becomes tiresome in its depiction of relentless bad luck.
Unfortunate coincidences and contrived misfortunes abound as everything always goes wrong. Chris is pressed for time? Someone sends him on an errand. He steps outside on a 10-minute break? Loses a shoe. He needs to catch someone who has stolen from him? He stupidly hollers from such a distance that the person bolts.
If Chris failed occasionally because of bad judgment or mis-prioritizing, fine. But the picture exhausts its energy and focus depicting Chris as having the unluckiest karma since the biblical Job.
- In wide release.
