The Pursuit of Happyness Earns Its Happiness at the Box Office

Chris Gardner, a man with no job, no money and no prospects puts his life on the line to not only get a better life for his son, but also make himself feel worthy of that life. In the film, Will Smith and his real life son along with his estranged wife struggle through hard times as his character Chris Gardner tries to keep their heads above water.

If you havent been in this situation like most people have, then you might not know just how desperate the character feels when he says "I had 21 dollars left in my bank account". And mind you, it's not just a character, it's a real life person whose story plays out on screen through the brilliants portrayal of Will Smith.

If you can't relate at first, Mr. Smith pulls you in with his eyes. He pulls you in with his desperation. He pulls you in with his hope. He doesn't say a lot about how desperate he is in the film which makes it all the much better. We see him throughout the film trying and trying and trying and trying and getting nowhere. It's depressing for a lot of reasons. We don't know exactly how the story will end but we have hope with this man's hope that he will get out of the situation he's in.

On the Today Show, Will Smith expressed his feeling that this was the best performance of his life, with no arrogance. He said the director and cinematographer gave him more direction than any other film he'd ever worked on and told him to "stop posing" for their camera. He said they pulled out something from him as an actor he'd never had any other director do.

And it showed.

I love Will Smith, most people do. But this was a different character. I cried with him, I got angry with him. When he yelled at his son or the people around him, I felt sympathy fro him. It wasn't just a role he was playing. He was Chris Gardener.

And lest we forget Will's real life son, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, who played son of Chris Gardener in the movie. As a child actor I'd say that his performance was outstanding. Some children can't act for anything, having it in the family or not. But this young boy laughed, cried, was angry, and it was all natural. It was like I was just watching someone's life on-screen without all the sappy, cliche' moments we see in regular family films. Not to say there weren't cliche' moments but in this film's case, they felt very real and they dealt with the drama on a human level.

Now I haven't seen all the other films this season, but I bet if you go see this film you won't be disappointed. The beginning is fairly long yes but other than that I really enjoyed the writing, the acting and the overall look of the film. I was bawling at the end of it and so was basically everyone in the theater. Tears of happiness for the most depressing/uplifting movie I've seen since Finding Nemo.