The Pursuit of Happyness from 2006 is a Good Movie, but I'm Not Sure About the Lesson

I enjoy watching movies based on true lives but only when it's more interesting than fiction. This film was very interesting, and a good story... but at the same time it didn't really invoke any feelings out of me.

Minor Plot Details
The story is about a man named Christopher, his wife, and his 5 year old son. The family is going through a rough time. Christopher and his wife had invested their life savings into a product they were going to try selling to hospitals. However, doctors weren't really interested in it since it costs twice as much as an xray machine yet only did a little bit more. Basically they were dead broke and life was not good. One day Christopher saw a man parking a fancy fancy car and asked him what he did, he was a stock broker. Christopher looked around and saw everyone in the area seemed happy. The guy with the nice car told him stock brokers didn't really need a degree, they just needed to be good at math and be good with people. So, that was what Christopher began to pursue. To be happy, he believed he needed to be a stock broker. But can he even get an interview? Will he even have time for this? And where the heck is his family going to live next week? You'll have to see for yourself, or just watch the documentary of the real guy who the story is about!

Actors
Will Smith played Christopher and as always he did a great job. He even managed to cry at one point. However, as good as he was, he didn't make me feel any emotions. Like I should have been really sad at the things he was going through, however I wasn't really feeling anything at all. He still kept me interested, so he was still a good actor.

Jaden Smith, Will's son, played Christopher's son. This little boy did a great job and he was soooo cute! I see him as a male version of Dakota Fanning because he was so smart and so cute that he made the movie better for me. He will probably make it big someday.

What I liked
Like I said many times already, the film is interesting. You learn a lot about what it takes to be a stock broker, at least in a firm such as this one. You also learn a lot about the life of the less fortunate. Seeing Chris trying to manage a family, a job, and a potential internship really showed how lucky a lot of us are to be able to relax. Chris basically could not relax throughout the whole movie because if he even slowed down for one minute, his son might have no dinner that night.

The movie was a drama overall, but they did have quite a few funny lines in it. Most of the funny lines came from the young boy because you really saw how smart he was. I don't have much else to say about What I liked except the film did hold my interest for almost the full 2 hours.

What I didn't like
I know this is a true story and you are supposed to feel sorry for this guys horrible, broke life. However, I found myself getting annoyed with Chris. I was thinking of how he was putting his son through all of these things when he could have easily gotten a job anywhere to at least pay the rent. His family may not have had a lot of money, but they would have been able to have a place to live. So that bugged me because while I thought the message of working hard for your dreams was a good one, I always believe you need to do what you can for your family first, instead of making them suffer for your dreams.

I also thought the movie ended at a bad point. I would have liked to see more of what happened to Chris in the future. They did tell us some things on the screen, but if they really wanted me to feel anything for him they should have showed at least a little bit of his life past the point where the movie ended... like a "10 years later" kind of scene to wrap it up. It seems a lot of documentary movies do this type of thing, make you sit and watch all the horrible things in long drawn-out detail, then don't show you much of the happy times. I know this guy had a hard life, but I would have liked to see more of what this hard work and dedication got him.

Speaking of long and drawn-out, they did make some scenes go a little too long. I would get the point of the scene, then it would go on for another few minutes of sadness. I get it, he's sad and depressed and his life sucks! Just show me what happens next. I could tell the movie was trying to make me feel real bad for this guy, but it didn't really work. Instead I was sometimes thinking "how long is this movie again??" and just waiting to see what happens next.

Conclusion
It wasn't really worth the money to see it in the theater because it really just felt like a fancy documentary for me. I still think it is a decent movie that was well done, for the most part. It was just kind of slow, and not real emotional for me. I wouldn't see it again because I got everything out of it the first time. It was more of a one-time interesting story about this guys life. Not bad, but wish I would have saved a few dollars and rented it instead. Enjoy!!