Review: The Pursuit of Happyness

The year is 1981, San Francisco. Chris Gardner (Will Smith), is a man struggling to sell high-density bone scanners, a machine considered inadequate by most clinics. When his wife (Thandie Newton) leaves him, the last of the scanners is gone and the landlord opts for eviction after long overdue rents, Chris is out on the streets with his son (Jaden Smith) in desperate search for food and shelter. A job at a prestigious stockbrokerage may be his only way out of misery. But first he will have to go through the unpaid internship programme…

The Pursuit of Happyness appears to boast all the ingredients surely to capture the Academy’s attention. Based on a true story, it’s a from-rags-to-riches tale of love, pain and wish fulfilment with a famed recording artist/movie star in the central role along with his real-life son. As if it weren’t enough the title (a deliberate misspelling explained early on in the film) is taken from an excerpt in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence which claims every American citizen is granted with unalienable rights, among which – you’ve guessed it – the pursuit of happiness. On paper it looks brilliant. On screen, however, not so much.

Italian director Gabriele Muccino does a passable job with his first Hollywood outing but not without a few blunders. One of these is the inclusion of a voiceover that all too often feels redundant (“This is me being stupid”). Thandie Newton could have made Gardner’s wife a morally complex figure, but instead is shoed off-screen far too quickly. Furthermore there are occasions where Pursuit feels a little too monotonous for its own good – there are only so many times you want to see the two Smiths wandering from one shelter to another.

The film’s only real strength is Will Smith. He has been trying to prove for a while that there is more to him than wisecracks and catchphrases, that he can do serious, that he can act. This is his first real attempt since 2001’s Ali and his performance here is completely different from the turn he gave in Michael Mann’s biopic. He plays Chris Gardner as a sensitive yet emotionally restrained man. The fact that he acts opposite real-life offspring Jaden also helps. The father-son interplay feels fresh and genuine; the scene where the two of them pretend to “hide from dinosaurs” in a subway station is bound to bring a tear to the eye.

However The Pursuit of Happyness is ultimate proof that one actor alone can’t always save a whole film from being regrettably mediocre. Definetly not a dire movie, far from it. Just a disappointing one.    

2/5