The Pursuit of Happyness

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Post by Sonic Youth »

VanHelsing wrote:
Sonic Youth wrote:His bitter, frustrated wife Linda (Thandie Newton in a thankless role) must work double shifts to pay bills.

Hmmm... yet they're pushing her for supporting.
I assume it's standard practice for a studio to FYC anyone who worked on a film.

Besides, thankless roles have been nominated before. You don't want me to bring up Capote again as an example, do you?
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The Pursuit Of Happyness

Tim Grierson in Los Angeles
Screendaily

Dir: Gabriele Muccino. US. 2006. 117mins.


Playing against type, Will Smith finds a role well suited to his talents in the true-life drama The Pursuit Of Happyness. Though a conventional “inspirational” tale of a saintly underdog finding hard-earned success through sheer will, it stays afloat thanks largely to Smith’s effortless charm.

In a crowded holiday film season, The Pursuit Of Happyness will rely on Smith’s marketability to find its audience, even though the gritty drama is not the sort of vehicle his fans usually flock to see him in (structurally, it follows in the footsteps of similar true-story cinematic adaptations such as Cinderella Man and Erin Brockovich, where a beleaguered parent has to overcome financial adversity to support their children).

While Smith’s action movies and comedies have been almost guaranteed blockbusters – he has starred in nine films in the last 10 years that have made over $100m domestically – his more sober-minded works like Ali and The Legend Of Bagger Vance have not fared as well at the box office.

But Pursuit’s uplifting message, along with Smith’s visibility (both in the US and abroad), should help the film find a happy middle ground between his huge hits and occasional disappointments, playing well with mainstream family friendly audiences. Regardless, a long run in the ancillary markets seems assured.

The film also hopes to have some impact on awards season, specifically with Smith's sober performance. Smith has already been nominated once for best actor with Ali, and his role in Pursuit seems tailor-made for similar recognition. (AMPAS especially enjoys rewarding popular figures it admires who stretch themselves in serious offerings.) The film's advocacy of hard work and self-reliance may also inspire enough voters to put it in the running for best picture.

In the early 1980s, struggling salesman Chris Gardner (Smith) lives in San Francisco with his wife Linda (Thandie Newton) and young son Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith). Tired of their desperate financial straits, Linda abandons them, forcing Chris to care for his son alone.

Possible salvation comes for Chris when he enters an unpaid internship program with a prestigious brokerage firm, whereby the best student will receive a coveted job offer. But since he’s penniless he faces a continual challenge to provide a life with even the barest of necessities for himself and his son.

Loosely based on the real Chris Gardner’s own rise from homeless salesman to affluent stockbroker, The Pursuit Of Happyness deserves acknowledgment for being that rare studio film to tackle the reality of poverty. The film-makers’ treatment of the poor is not glibly sentimentalised; instead, the movie’s matter-of-factness helps to illustrate the daily frustrations and humiliations associated with destitution.

Director Gabriele Muccino (making his English-language debut) and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael give the movie an intentionally drab look, emphasising San Francisco’s urban blight and measly lower-income living conditions.

Likewise, Smith’s portrayal of Gardner is well controlled, avoiding the twinkled-eye exuberance he so easily brings to his action-hero roles. At the same time, though, he retains his likable charisma, showing Gardner’s warmth and self-confidence no matter the odds against him. In previous dramatic turns, Smith has suffered from trying too hard to make us believe him as a serious actor. But in Pursuit, Smith – whose own career is a model of self-assurance and dogged determination, seguing seamlessly from music to TV to movies – feels more relaxed. It shows he understands Gardner’s hunger for a better life while also exhibiting the engaging, amiable personality that Gardner would have needed to win over those around him.

But although Smith’s performance feels natural, the movie’s triumph-over-the-odds message becomes cumbersome. Once Linda leaves Chris, the story bounces between scenes of Chris at the internship, moments between Chris and his son, and almost endless amounts of new obstacles that continually test his resolve to pull him and Christopher out of poverty. Though Chris is an admirable character because he wants the best for his son, he is not very memorable nor complex.

While it’s easy to admire the man’s drive, Pursuit doesn’t care to investigate his inner workings. Without that necessary ingredient, Chris’ unquestioned internal fortitude becomes almost inhuman and his path to redemption formulaic. By showing more layers to the character – his failings and his deep-seated fears – Pursuit would have presented a more mortal, and therefore more relatable and inspiring, protagonist.

Playing Chris’ son Christopher is Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, Will Smith’s seven-year-old son. In his feature debut, Jaden demonstrates an obvious rapport with his real-life father. And much like his famous dad, Jaden gives an unaffected performance – his Christopher is an appropriately curious and trouble-making little kid, scared by elements of his anxious life but also quite appealing without ever becoming annoyingly adorable.
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Post by VanHelsing »

Sonic Youth wrote:His bitter, frustrated wife Linda (Thandie Newton in a thankless role) must work double shifts to pay bills.
Hmmm... yet they're pushing her for supporting.
With a Southern accent...
"Don't you dare lie to me!" and...
"You threaten my congeniality, you threaten me!"

-------

"You shouldn't be doing what you're doing. The truth is enough!"
"Are you and Perry?" ... "Please, Nelle."
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Two reviews:

The Pursuit of Happyness
By BRIAN LOWRY
Variety


The fact-inspired drama "The Pursuit of Happyness" is more inspirational than creatively inspired -- imbued with the kind of uplifting, afterschool-special qualities that can trigger a major toothache. Clearly savoring the chance to work alongside his moppet son, Will Smith is in serious mode as Chris Gardner, whose story is one of perseverance overcoming tremendous hardship. Smith's heartfelt performance is easy to admire. But the movie's painfully earnest tone should skew its appeal to the portion of the audience that, admittedly, has catapulted many cloying TV movies into hits, and an endorsement from Oprah Winfrey on her popular talkshow can't hurt.

Strictly in political terms, the film could hardly be more finely tuned -- offering a sympathetic view of those struggling to stay out of poverty as well as a "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" message. And in that calculation resides its basic flaw -- a nagging sense throughout that we're being emotionally played.

Deriving its title from a misspelling at the San Francisco daycare center where Gardner parks his son, the narrative unfolds in 1981 as the protagonist's voiceover narration identifies various chapters in his life. At its core, there's a grand sense of the American dream in Gardner's rags-to-riches experience -- a guy who found himself homeless and sleeping in subway stations, only to become a multimillionaire. "The Pursuit of Happyness" devotes its two hours entirely to that struggle, wrenching as it often is.

Gardner states at the outset that he didn't know his own father and was determined not to let that happen with his own children. Unfortunately, he squanders his savings investing in a medical gizmo, driving a wedge between him and his wife (Thandie Newton), who eventually takes flight.

At that point, the film becomes a bit of "Kramer vs. Kramer" meets madefor "Homeless to Harvard," as single dad Chris endeavors to keep himself and his 5-year-old son, Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith), afloat financially while pursuing a tantalizing but maddening opportunity: an unpaid internship at brokerage firm Dean Witter Reynolds that offers no promise of employment at the six-month trial's conclusion.

Along the way, Chris rides an economic roller-coaster, at various points having to sleep in a shelter or, worse, a BART station restroom -- cleverly turning the latter ordeal into a game to help his not-fully-understanding boy endure the night. Still, because anyone who has done the slightest research knows this tale is ultimately one of capitalistic triumph (there wouldn't be a movie otherwise), the building toward that inevitable climax proves a sometimes arduous slog.

The younger Smith is allowed to deliver a natural, childlike performance, though occasionally Gabriele Muccino, the Italian helmer of "The Last Kiss" making his English-language debut, and writer Steven Conrad unhelpfully saddle the tot with big, chewy mouthfuls of dialogue.

For the most part, though, the movie is the elder Smith's showcase, and he throws his all into the role. Yet while there are occasional flashes of personality -- such as the moment when Gardner wows a potential employer (Brian Howe) by mastering a Rubik's cube -- the circumstances restrain him, as the movie operates in a rather narrow emotional range before its eventual payoff. (Gardner, credited as an associate producer, came to the producers' attention via a "20/20" profile, and only a brief footnote addresses his subsequent accomplishments.)

Technically, pic does a nice job of re-creating the Bay Area a quarter-century ago through music and wardrobe, and Andrea Guerra's score establishes a properly melancholy tone. In the final accounting, however, "The Pursuit of Happyness" winds up being a little like the determined salesman Mr. Gardner himself: easy to root for, certainly, but not that much fun to spend time with.


--------------------------------------


The Pursuit of Happyness

By Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter



"The Pursuit of Happyness" certainly is a decent, well-intended film about a father's responsibility to his son and his struggles with homelessness. It features a sensitive performance by Will Smith as a character, based on a real man, who overcame staggering obstacles to claim his stake of the American dream. Were this an indie film with a gritty edge and a fresh take on being down-and-out in the richest country in the world, "Pursuit" would stand a good chance of winning an award at next month's Sundance Film Festival.

Instead, this is a slick studio production with a huge movie star and top professionals occupying every production role so that the polish of this well-made film makes even homelessness look neat and tidy. Then inserting nonsensical chases and suspense sequences into the story betrays its Hollywood heritage.

Smith's performance will win accolades from critics, and Sony certainly can sell this as a feel-good holiday film. So "Pursuit" may well claim boxoffice happiness. A lot depends on Smith's marquee clout.

The story takes place in early 1980s San Francisco, when the trickle-down economic theory was all the rage. Smith's Chris Gardner is running hard just to keep in place. An investment in a bone-scanning machine, which he then discovers the medical profession isn't terribly interested in buying from him, has left his family nearly broke. The Gardners are two months behind on rent, the car has been towed for unpaid parking tickets, and the IRS wants back taxes. His bitter, frustrated wife Linda (Thandie Newton in a thankless role) must work double shifts to pay bills.


In a sequence that begs for more explanation, Linda quits the family and moves to New York in search of a job, leaving her 5-year-old son with his penniless dad. It's safe to say Linda is not bucking for Mother of the Year. Through guile and determination, Chris lands an internship with a stock brokerage firm. But he will receive no pay until he lands a broker's job for which he must compete with 20-odd fellow interns.

Within a week, he and his son Christopher (Smith's real-life son Jaden Christopher Syre Smith) get evicted. They move to a motel as Smith continues to sell his stockpile of bone scanners. But the IRS attaches his bank account, so the two find themselves on the street, sleeping in shelters, subway cars and, for one night, a public toilet.

Screenwriter Steven Conrad and director Gabriele Muccino do a fine job of moving between two worlds that scarcely recognize each other -- the street where risk, loss and gain are matters of survival and Wall Street where those same possibilities drive the Darwinian competition. At times the film wants to manufacture melodrama, such as chases after people who steal Chris' bone scanner or his parking a partner's car when he has only minutes to land a major account. They feel like intrusions in the real story.

Muccino is an Italian director ("The Last Kiss") making his English-language debut, but you look in vain for evidence of a fresh eye on American society. The period details in J. Michael Riva's production design are solid, but any number of fair-to-middling Hollywood directors could have made this film. Phedon Papamichael's cinematography is refreshingly straightforward, but Andrea Guerra's music edges into sentimentality.
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