The Pursuit of Happyness is a 2006 American biographical drama film based on Chris Gardner's nearly one-year struggle with homelessness. Directed by Gabriele Muccino, the film features Will Smith as Gardner, an on-and-off-homeless salesman-turned stockbroker. Smith's son Jaden Smith co-stars, making his film debut as Gardner's son, Christopher Jr.
The screenplay by Steven Conrad is based on the best-selling memoir written by Gardner with Quincy Troupe. The film was released on December 15, 2006, by Columbia Pictures. For his performance, Smith was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actor. The unusual spelling of the film's title comes from a sign Gardner saw when he was homeless. In the film, "happiness" is incorrectly spelled as "happyness" outside the daycare facility Gardner's son attends.
The screenplay by Steven Conrad is based on the best-selling memoir written by Gardner with Quincy Troupe. The film was released on December 15, 2006, by Columbia Pictures. For his performance, Smith was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actor. The unusual spelling of the film's title comes from a sign Gardner saw when he was homeless. In the film, "happiness" is incorrectly spelled as "happyness" outside the daycare facility Gardner's son attends.
Reception:-
The film was received generally positively by critics. Film review site Rotten Tomatoes calculated a 66% overall approval based on 166 reviews.
In the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle observed, "The great surprise of the picture is that it's not corny . . . The beauty of the film is its honesty. In its outlines, it's nothing like the usual success story depicted on-screen, in which, after a reasonable interval of disappointment, success arrives wrapped in a ribbon and a bow. Instead, this success story follows the pattern most common in life — it chronicles a series of soul-sickening failures and defeats, missed opportunities, sure things that didn't quite happen, all of which are accompanied by a concomitant accretion of barely perceptible victories that gradually amount to something. In other words, it all feels real."
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film "a fairy tale in realist drag . . . the kind of entertainment that goes down smoothly until it gets stuck in your craw . . . It's the same old bootstraps story, an American dream artfully told, skillfully sold. To that calculated end, the film making is seamless, unadorned, transparent, the better to serve Mr. Smith's warm expressiveness . . . How you respond to this man's moving story may depend on whether you find Mr. Smith's and his son's performances so overwhelmingly winning that you buy the idea that poverty is a function of bad luck and bad choices, and success the result of heroic toil and dreams."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film three out of a possible four stars and commented, "Smith is on the march toward Oscar . . . [His] role needs gravity, smarts, charm, humor and a soul that's not synthetic. Smith brings it. He's the real deal."
In the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle observed, "The great surprise of the picture is that it's not corny . . . The beauty of the film is its honesty. In its outlines, it's nothing like the usual success story depicted on-screen, in which, after a reasonable interval of disappointment, success arrives wrapped in a ribbon and a bow. Instead, this success story follows the pattern most common in life — it chronicles a series of soul-sickening failures and defeats, missed opportunities, sure things that didn't quite happen, all of which are accompanied by a concomitant accretion of barely perceptible victories that gradually amount to something. In other words, it all feels real."
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film "a fairy tale in realist drag . . . the kind of entertainment that goes down smoothly until it gets stuck in your craw . . . It's the same old bootstraps story, an American dream artfully told, skillfully sold. To that calculated end, the film making is seamless, unadorned, transparent, the better to serve Mr. Smith's warm expressiveness . . . How you respond to this man's moving story may depend on whether you find Mr. Smith's and his son's performances so overwhelmingly winning that you buy the idea that poverty is a function of bad luck and bad choices, and success the result of heroic toil and dreams."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film three out of a possible four stars and commented, "Smith is on the march toward Oscar . . . [His] role needs gravity, smarts, charm, humor and a soul that's not synthetic. Smith brings it. He's the real deal."
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