“The Pursuit of Happyness” is a passionate story of parenthood, misery, pain and protecting the innocence of a kid. The film is moving, no doubt, and is executed in a way that shakes up the emotions of the audience through it's two hours runtime. It will leave you in tears for sure. The film is a quality drama with a solid message about the society and pursuing the American dream. It makes you believe that through the hardships, perseverance will be awarded with success in spite of the time taken.
The film's strong voice comes from its master depiction of a man who figures out how to discover faith at absolute bottom, and protects his child in any event even when they needed to live on the streets. In the most remarkable scene of the film, Chris Gardener, played by Will Smith, blockades himself, and his child Christopher, played by Jaden Smith, inside a subway station washroom so his child could stay asleep without fear. The brilliance of the scene and the film overall, is that Chris figures out how to safeguard his child's innocence by disclosing to him that they returned back in time, that the subway washroom in a cave, and they're covering up there from non-existent dinosaurs, all while hiding his own tears. All we can do is not cry with Chris in this scene.
Notwithstanding the film's attention on early life of children, the movie's depiction of poverty and homelessness were genuinely real and terrible. It scrapes your heart with pain showing the helplessness of the protagonist.
Another solid point, the film's message is uncovered through a moving monologue on a rooftop of a basketball court. “Don't ever let somebody tell you can't do something,” Chris to his son, and in turn, the audience. ‘’You got a dream, you gotta protect it," he says. It might be a message we've all heard consistently, yet the conviction with which Smith conveys those lines, and the story, in light of the occasions, that affirms the point so well that it gives the apparently conventional ‘follow your dreams’ saying a new life.
Jaden Smith has to be applauded for his fine acting at such a young age. And Will Smith lived his role. When we see him get the job and walk through the pavement clapping his hands, just like how we felt his helplessness, we felt his “happyness” too. This can be possible only through such tremendous acting.
The downside of the movie is that it's highly predictable. Even though we keep rooting for Chris's success, we know despite the struggles he will win in the end. The acting of the father-son duo has worked so well.
With such phenomenal acting and creatively moving scenes, these shortcomings can be overlooked. “The Pursuit of Happyness” keeps on being an astounding film that uses various sentiments. It asks the audience not only to see the value in what they have, yet also to struggle no matter how hard it gets, to accomplish their own dreams. This is why “The Pursuit of Happyness” is more than a movie.
