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Pursuit of Happyness

Pretty good flick. Though it always felt like a little something else would’ve made it great.

• Structure/Plot

The story could’ve skipped the sequence where Will Smith sees the weirdo who got hold of his “time machine” and then gets hit by a car and loses a shoe. Nothing came of this. We already had one sequence of him chasing the hippie girl who stole his bone machine and he later gets back this other machine from the weirdo. And him at work without a shoe is nothing compared to him in his painter’s clothes after a night in jail.

There was not enough suspense leading up to his hiring. We saw what he did to compete with the others- no drinking, not hanging up the phone- but a couple of brief moments on one specific rival would’ve been even better. The way the movie is now, I obviously knew Smith was going to get the job. I’m not saying that’s a flaw, but the above could’ve made me wonder if he was going to finish second and still get an offer from the firm, or perhaps from one of his clients/contacts. (I didn’t know the details of the true events this is based on. See the video at end for that.)

There was a slight disconnect in not showing how the travails of his personal life conflicted with his chances at the internship. There was the conflict of him finding the time and conditions to study and the conflict of basic survival of finding places to live. But they didn’t extend fully to the internship program. Example- the boss of the program picked on him for no reason. Imagine had he picked on Smith because he always wore the same two suits. Or because he came to work disheveled the day after sleeping in the bathroom. Otherwise, why did the boss pick on him? An unspoken racial element? It didn’t fit.

• The end

It would’ve been nice to see Smith get his first paycheck. Or him and his son moving into a new apartment could’ve been the short denouement instead of them walking down the hill. Or the big boss could’ve pulled him aside after the hiring and given him an advance, realizing the tough situation he’s in. Something. Like in Erin Brokovich, imagine not seeing Julia Roberts get the big check at the very end.

20/20 story on the real Chris Gardner.

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