The Pursuit of Happyness takes place in San Francisco, 1981, Based on the real life story of Chris Gardner, an aspiring stockbroker who was barely making any money as salesperson and eventually experiences homelessness with his five-year-old son, The Pursuit of Happyness takes you on a two-hour emotional ride like never before, highlighting the struggles Chris goes through as he tries to persevere through adversity. The movie is starring two-time Academy Award winner Will Smith who portrays Chris Gardner and is joined by his real life son Jaden Smith who co-stars as his five-year old son ‘Christopher Jr.’
The movie is centred around Chris Gardner, a humble man, brimming with wisdom and kindness as he tries his best to put food on the table for his family, but unfortunately he struggles to find financial stability as an independent salesperson where his job is to sell bone-density scanners. As a result, it ultimately led to relationship devastation with his wife leaving him and their son to survive on their own. With little to no money to his name and no wife, Chris is fully committed to his son. Later on, while attempting to sell the machine to a stranger, Chris notices a sign on the glass door at a stock brokerage firm ‘Dean Witters’ which read “Stockbroker Trainee Program, Applications Accepted” He applied for the internship and got accepted, the only issue was that this was a six-month internship program with no pay. This is where Chris’s life goes even further downhill as he ends up going homeless because he isn’t able to pay rent and has to resort to sleeping in homeless shelters and at one point subway station bathrooms. But Chris doesn’t lose hope, instead he keeps up showing up to work each and every day for six straight months until the day the heads of Dean Witter call him into an office and offer him the job. After receiving the news, Chris leaves the building overjoyed with emotions and bursts into tears, the movie then ends with Chris rushing to pick his son up from day care straight after, knowing that they could finally lift off the financial border and live a normal and happy life together.
One thing that made this movie so emotional was the outstanding casting, and we can thank Will Smith for that, he portrays Chris Gardner to perfection, his ability to connect with the viewers was otherworldly. At times, you could truly feel and understand what Chris Gardner is going through emotionally in every scene. Another fine acting performance was done by Five-year old Jaden Smith (Will Smith’s real life son) portrays Christopher Jr., a loving son who’s always encouraging his father to do better no matter what the situation is, even throughout all the mishaps and unfortunate circumstances he stays by his side knowing that he is his father’s motivation.
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At first, my expectations for the movie were very slim as I simply expected to watch a movie that’ll inspire me and nothing more, but this movie had everything, it is about persistence and about never giving up, no matter how hard things are, no matter how lonely, rejected, forgotten and ignored you feel, you have to keep going, keep trying and accepting that failures and mistakes are part of life, it is what it will help to pave the way to success. It was very interesting that the movie was also about being successful in the business world, the challenging and risky, daring and powerful business environment, where building up relationships, creating new ideas and interacting with strangers and business partners is part of what makes a company grow. This man was pushed by his dreams, by wanting and constant vision for the well-being of his young son, it was very painful to see the many times he was rejected by potential clients and denied help by some friends. He always had faith and did not give up, shortcomings, hardships and troubles came his way, he even went through homelessness but did not stop, did not flinch at these situations, did no harm to anyone and continue working on his way to success, loving his child, trying his best.
References
- IMDb: The Pursuit of Happyness
- Wikipedia: The Pursuit of Happyness
- Rotten Tomatoes: The Pursuit of Happyness
- Outlook India: Chris Gardner – Have Vision, Hold Firm, Work Hard and Never Ever Give Up
- Business Insider: McDonald’s lost out on $105 million lawsuit after it was claimed that the company unfairly paid 800 workers
