THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

Director: Gabriele Muccino (The Last Kiss, Remember Me, My Love - rising star of Italian cinema)
Starring: Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Thandie Newton

My advice for those planning to see The Pursuit of Happyness is to hold on to your heart strings, because the tugging is about to commence. And the tugging is long. And the tugging is hard. And the tugging won't stop until the last credit rolls. And damn it, this film is so earnestly single minded in its pursuit of heart string tugging that if you're not weeping with joy at the end of this film I wouldn't be surprised if a theater manager has been contracted to come out and physically make you weep. (For my part I managed to jump out of the theater while a couple of burly ushers brushed by me and set their eyes on a stone-faced boyfriend obviously seeing the movie because of his date for the evening.)

Yes, this film is a joyful cryer. And I saw a few folks tearing up in their seats when it was all over. (That's "tearing up" like crying, not "tearing up" like ripping their seats apart by the way.) The film follows a struggling salesman (Will Smith) while his marriage and financial life nosedive into oblivion. He takes sole custody of his child (Jaden Smith) and grabs hold tightly to a dream of a new career. He has a dream to become a stock broker, because it's a better life than the one he has. He never attended college, but he's smart. He doesn't have the time or money to attend a 6-month unpaid internship program for brokers, but he does it anyway. His prospects for the future and day-to-day circumstances sink lower and lower while he single-mindedly focuses on becoming a broker. He and his child go from living in a run-of-the-mill low-rent apartment to a one-room efficiency, to a homeless shelter, to sleeping in a subway restroom.

Family services would have a field day with this guy, but somehow he slips through the cracks. He makes his kid sleep on a subway train, but it's all so he can have a 1 in 20 chance of becoming the broker selected from his internship program. On the surface this seems hard to swallow, but the film generally makes it work. He is single-minded in his pursuit of a better life for his child, in his pursuit of happiness. He has to go through hell to find happyiness, but that's the whole "pursuit" part of the famous phrase. When I sit down and think about this plot, it certainly feels maudlin and overblown, but in the end I think it really does work. I refuse to be overly cynical on this one - although I think others may feel differently.

Eventually, Smith gets rich of course. He (and his child) acheive happiness. I've heard the notion that "money can't buy happiness" before, but guess what? It's quite wrong. I think anyone who actually believes that is either jealous of rich people or already rich themselves, because money is one of the biggest hurdles in the pursuit of a happy life. It's not the only hurdle, by no means, but it's one of the big ones. They've even done scientifically controlled studies, and poor people who become rich are some of the happiest people on the planet. (The bastards.)

Director Muccino has done a very good job with this weepy material in his first American production, but the real credit goes to Will Smith. He is eminently likable throughout, but he still manages to cross the range of emotions from anger and despair to tender joy. He will quite likely be Oscar-nominated for this work, and I think he's got a great shot at winning. His top-notch performance was certainly intense at times, but it's also very approachable, as is the film itself. Surprisingly, Smith's son was also quite good in this film. Although as a child, he mostly just had to act like a child. This was a very accessible, tear-inducing flick, although quite good.

Standouts: Will Smith, movie star.
Blowouts: It's perhaps a bit too "emotional".

Grade: B+