The Pursuit of Happiness - San Francisco

Posted by Yuka as Hot Cities, Movies

The movie is “inspired by a true story,” that of Chris Gardner, who was among San Francisco’s working homeless in the early ’80s and managed to pull himself and his young son up by the bootstraps. “Inspired by” is an interesting phrase because the movie is more inspiring than inspired.

The name of the film “The Pursuit of Happyness” misspelled “happyness” by deliberate intention,and undoubtedly, in which the most philosophical sentence is “There’s no ‘y’（why ）in happiness.”

Throughout the movie we see Chris schlepping along with one of the machines seemingly glued to his arm. He needs to sell two scanners a month to pay the rent and for the day care of his son at a substandard facility that explains the misspelled “Happyness.” His product, as they say in outside sales, is not moving.However, Chris has that dream.

Worn out from working double shifts as a waitress, Linda no longer buys into the dream. She heads for New York, leaving her family and their troubles behind. You can imagine the angst that Chris now feels. He can’t sell his scanners, he can’t pay the rent, and the IRS is closing in for back taxes.

As luck would have it, Chris happens upon a new opportunity. He is selected as an unpaid intern for a six-month stockbroker trainee program with Dean Witter Reynolds. There is no guarantee of a position upon successful completion.

Through a series of mishaps, Chris ends up homeless. After going through the demanding rigors of the internship during the day, Chris has to run like the wind (sign him as a running back for the Texans, please) to collect Christopher from day care to get in line for a bed in a homeless shelter. Some nights they are successful; other nights they are not. A public restroom at the BART station shelters them on one harrowing night.

I sat throughout the film wondering how much worse things could get for Chris. We know there is a happy ending, but the journey there is a rather bumpy road. Throughout it all Will Smith gives the performance of a lifetime. There is one poignant scene where he tells his son, “Don’t ever let someone tell you you can’t do something. Not even me. You’ve got a dream; you’ve got to protect it. You want something, you go get it. Period.”

Some Sentences in the Film:

I’m the type of person,if you ask me a question, and I don’t konw the answer,I’m gonna to tell you that I don’t konw.But I bet you what: I konw how to find the answer, and I’ll find the answer.

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson，the Declaration of Independence，and the part about our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking: How did he know to put the “pursuit” part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue. And maybe we can actually never have it…no matter what. How did he know that?