Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
1/4/07
Sure, he's handsome, funny
and a fine actor, but I suspect the real reason Will Smith has quietly
become Hollywood's biggest star is that he seems like a really nice guy.
Exhibit A: The Pursuit of Happyness, an already amazing real-life
rags-to-riches story that draws almost unbearable suspense from the horror
of reducing our pal the Fresh Prince to sleeping at homeless shelters while
he doggedly pursues the American Dream.
It's 1981. Chris Gardner
(Smith) has poured all his savings into an advanced but expensive line
of bone density scanners he tries (and mostly fails) to sell to hospitals.
His wife Linda (Thandie Newton) pulls two shifts at a lousy job trying
to keep them and their young son Christopher (Will's real-life son Jaden
Christopher Syre Smith) afloat. Looking for a way out of economic
quicksand, Chris has a chance meeting with a stock broker and his expensive
car outside the offices of Dean Witter. Despite an education that
ends with high school and an unimpressive resume, he becomes determined
to get his foot in the door of the better life a job there represents.
But for Linda, this is the last straw: she leaves, trying to take
Christopher with her. But Chris is determined to hang onto his son,
and he does, even when Linda moves to New York. And his refusal to
take “no” for an answer has paid off at Dean Witter, too: after impressively
solving a Rubik's Cube in front of one of the partners (Brian Howe), he's
invited to join their Internship program. Their unpaid Internship
program, where just one of 20 participants will be selected for a job.
With nothing but a few remaining bone scanners to sell for money, Chris
becomes involved in an ever-escalating game of chicken with the Almighty
Dollar. And between stolen scanners, unexpected tax bills, and a
seemingly endless series of parking tickets, the fates are not on his side.
Bit by bit, he loses his economic footing, first going from an apartment
to a motel, then from the motel to a daily ritual of fighting for a spot
in line at homeless shelters so he and his son will have a place to sleep.
All the while, Chris keeps plugging away, both as an Intern and as a Father.
All right, I know what you're
saying to yourself: the real-life Chris Gardner probably wouldn't
have written a book about how he ended up homeless and DIDN'T get the job.
That said, it's amazing how much suspense the film version generates from
every little crisis he faced trying to get through the day on little or
no money. And unlike a lot of movies about hard times, The Pursuit
of Happyness isn't afraid to let you peak inside Chris's wallet to
see the eight dollars he's carrying, or to show you exactly what kind of
bills he's got to pay. This give the whole thing an authenticity
usually lacking when a major studio release tries to squint hard enough
to see how the Common Folk live.
Through it all, Smith's remarkable
performance shows new facets of his talent. The humor and charm are
still there, but the “Welcome to Earth!” bravura that made him famous is
all but gone, replaced by a quiet, relentless decency. Indeed, relentless
is the best way to describe Gardner, a man with no time to stop, no time
to reflect: his schedule so overstuffed with survival that he even
stops putting the phone back on the hook between dialing calls at Dean
Witter to save eight minutes a day. Smith nails both that drive to
succeed and the need to keep going lest the horror of his situation overwhelm
him. Not surprisingly, he also enjoys formidable chemistry with his
son, who makes an impressive acting debut. And while I'm sure Thandie
Newton is a perfectly charming and delightful woman, she's got a real gift
for seeming cold and uncaring onscreen. While it's easy to sympathize
with Linda's heartbreak on paper, her short, judgmental line readings and
hard-hearted glares make sure she always seems like a quitter at heart.
On the Dean Witter side, there are several good performances (Howe, James
Karen, and Dan Castellaneta at his least Homeresque) that strike just the
right note: Gardner's future co-workers aren't bad guys per se, they
just can't imagine a world where someone would think five dollars is a
lot of money.
If the movie does have a
weakness, it's in its' failure to make any case for the art of stock brokering
other than that you can make a lot of money doing it. While Chris's
fight for the job is a fight to survive, it would have been nice to get
a sense that he'd have missed more than the money if he wasn't selected.
Otherwise, writer Steve Conrad does a fine job staying out of the way of
the story's inherent sentiment. Even an initially awkward device
of having Narrator Gardner give each “Part” of his life a name pays off
wonderfully at the end.
The Pursuit of Happyness
is a good reminder of both the struggles of the working poor and the power
of dreams and hard work to turn things around. Keep an eye out for
the real-life Chris Gardner who takes a much deserved bow as a pedestrian
in the closing shot. |
