It occurred to me that the only Will Smith movies I'd seen were a few '90s sci-fis. I thought it only fair to check out his more serious, perhaps more mature side in possibly his most esteemed later effort, which got him a second Oscar nod.
In early-'80s San Francisco, Chris Gardner (Smith) has made an unwise career move: selling expensive, seemingly optional bone density scanners to doctors. By the start of the movie, his family is behind on bills. Wife Linda (Thandie Newton) walks out on him and briefly tries to take five-year-old son Christopher (Jaden Smith!) with her. Chris decides that his best move is to take a six-month unpaid internship at a brokerage and hope to be the one chosen for the job among 20 candidates. In the meantime, his living situation will worsen.
In case you're wondering about the title, "happyness" appears on the wall of Christopher's questionable daycare -- the source of some of the rare moments approaching comic relief. Since Chris has started to wonder whether happiness can be only pursued and not attained, it makes sense that he'd internalize the misspelling.
While Chris makes a few mistakes, his woes largely look like the results of terrible luck. I lost count of how many times I thought, "Oh, come on!" or "Wouldn't you know it." Conversely, when things get better for him, I'm inclined to attribute it to skill. He does exercise some fine math and charisma to impress his potential employers. I hate to think where he'd be if he couldn't pull that off.
Chris does a number of things I don't picture myself doing in his shoes. For example, he tells quite a few lies, some to apparent benefit, some not, and some just gratuitously. But this difference does nothing to reduce my sympathy for him. We all hate when we get dealt a bad hand.
Perhaps more than that, I feel sorry for Christopher, who doesn't fully understand why they can't stay in a nicer home and who doesn't need to lose much to feel like crying. Sometimes I wonder if he would have been better off going with Linda, even bearing in mind that she was the one to initiate the breakup. Chris thinks she'd make a worse provider, but we don't get to see much from her perspective. For Chris' part, he is making an honest effort to be a much better father than he had, but he doesn't always set a good example.
Only after viewing did I remember that TPoH is based on a true story. Had I kept that in mind, I wouldn't have worried about the ending. It's not even a Little Miss Sunshine-type ending where great efforts are wasted but the heroes have learned to live in peace with that.
To me, the biggest surprise in the end is in how Chris reacts to success. First he doesn't noticeably. Then he assumes an expression that, out of context, I would take as stressed. Could it be that he hasn't felt happy in so long that he's out of practice? Or is he too overwhelmed by the onrush? Either way, it was at this point that Will Smith moved up a tier in my mental rating of actors.
He also gets credit for discovering and selecting the director, Gabriele Muccino. (Could Smith know more foreign cinema than I do?) Muccino had done only Italian films before and spoke little English, often supplementing his directions with gestures. That was enough. He brings apt cinematography and an outside understanding of the American Dream, which somehow translates to a very American-looking feature.
It's more expensive than you might expect for a semi-modern drama about poverty. Muccino worked with a bigger space than ever before to capture San Francisco. Since Chris frequently takes buses and trains and sometimes sprints across busy streets, you can bet that the filmmaking caused disruption for a lot of locals. Nevertheless, I believe the film did more good than harm, not least because it gave some employment to many actual homeless people.
I'm not ready to say I love TPoH, but I am glad for its existence. Maybe I'll look into more Smith fare.
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