The Pursuit of Happyness

The trailer for The Pursuit of Happyness gave it a TV movie-of-the-week look; a man pulling himself up by his bootstraps with an adorable urchin in tow. Happily, the actual film is more gritty than that, and is thankfully far more restrained.

Will Smith plays a man who struggled to make ends meet selling medical equipment that few doctors or hospitals want. He is dedicated to his son (played by Smith's real son, Jaden), so that when his wife leaves him, tired of his get-rich-quick schemes, he takes custody. His eyes are on a prize--an internship at Dean Witter. But it is an unpaid internship, and only one of twenty students will be hired.

What interested me most about this film was its examination of the working poor. For a time Smith and his son become homeless, sharing a harrowing night in a subway men's room, then a period where they have to queue up for space in a shelter. There is such a blanketing misunderstanding of the homeless in America, and here is an explanation of at least how one man, wearing a suit, needs to be in a homeless shelter.

Smith, of course, is a very engaging performer, and ably depicts a man's desperation, and his unflinching belief that he can have a better life for him and his son. There's a nice moment when his son expresses an interest in basketball, but Smith tells him not to expect to be good. He immediately realizes his mistake, that he has done the same thing that people have been doing to him.