Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Gabriele Muccino
Cast :
Will Smith”¦”¦….Chris Gardner
Jaden Smith”¦”¦…..Christopher
Thandie Newton”¦”¦….Linda
If it was released in any other month of 2006, one could consider The Pursuit of Happyness a rare miscalculation from Will Smith. Normally a man known for making smart choices for the films he does, he’s one of the rare stars in Hollywood who’s nearly bullet-proof in his film selections. So films like this, which any other time of year would be merely an average film, turns into something much less common than a mediocre film. The Pursuit of Happyness is a pretentious, award-aimed film that is unfitting of its main star.
Based on the book of he same name, Smith stars as Chris Gardner. A self-made millionaire, Gardne’s path to riches involved some tough times. The film focuses on a six month period in his life when he was an intern at Dean Witter. With his wife Linda (Thandie Newton) having left him and his business of selling medical technology not going as well as planned, it’s a rough stretch for Chris as he tries to raise his son Christopher (Jaden Smith). As he struggles for money and an unpaid internship, Gardner tries to do the best he can with what he’s given in life.
And while Gardne’s rags to riches story itself is rather inspiring, how the film goes about showing it lacks any sort of subtlety. This is a movie with a message, obviously, but the message is a sledgehammer in the hands of Gabriele Muccino as opposed to the screwdriver it should be. The film lacks finesse in terms of how it handles the message juxtaposed against the story itself. Whenever the film starts to move in the right direction and the story begins to take over, one character or another will do or say something as a reminder that there’s a message to be found in this film.
And while the message is loud and clear, what’s missing is a great performance from Will Smith. While it’s relatively good, as Smith is charming enough to rally behind, in this movie he seems more like Jim Carrey in The Majestic than his normal self. This is a film that screams out that Smith is trying to earn another Academy Award nomination as opposed to being a great performance. It’s not a nuanced character, as there’s not nearly enough development for it to be the sort of character and performance that could be considered Oscar-worthy.
It’s interesting to note that the film’s biggest weakness would be the father-son dynamic between Will Smith and his real life son Jaden. One would expect them to have a lot of chemistry together but shockingly enough they don’t. Will tries hard to bring out a good performance from his son, but it really doesn’t work as his son gives a rather uninspired performance. While one can’t ask a lot out of child actors, Jaden Smith comes off as whiny and irritating more often than he’s endearing. This is a father-son combination that doesn’t really work on camera, sinking many of the dramatic moments of the film because of it.
If it was any other actor, The Pursuit of Happyness could be chalked up to the usual derivative, clichéd message movie. It could even be written off as a film intentionally going for an Oscar nomination above everything else. It’s just that more is expected when Will Smith is in front of a camera.
