The Pursuit of Happyness

Spoiler Warning: The following review makes references to the plot and ending of the movie. After a roller coaster ride in time of watching good and bad movies, I came across a movie that touches a chord and at the same time doesn't pull you down a crevice when you least expect it. Let's face it. Hollywood has always, in the end, saved us from drowning into the depths of our most feared emotions. The Pursuit of Happyness follows suit. The ending might seem trite and Hollywood-ish, but then, we watch movies to reflect something of ourselves and something of our inner desires. This movie does just that. Will Smith is a struggling salesman, trying to eke out a living by selling a strange gadget which no one seems to want. His attention, however, is all the time on the upbringing of his son. The love that he has for his son and the frustration of not giving his son the best education or the best environment is brought out very lucidly by Will Smith as he walks his son down to the Japanese playhome every day. The playhome is shown to be a small place run by a Japanese immigrant who herself appears to be strugging to make ends meet. As the bills increase and taxes and car tickets blast their way into Will Smith's home, his life falls apart. Being homeless and divorced is not quite a man's craving while he is searching for a job. Taking his son from one shelter to another, Will Smith decides to enter the stock market and become a stock broker. His journey through a 6-month training program, sans salary, and the act of raising his son in ghettos and railway toilets is one of the moving parts of this film. The scene to watch out for is when Will Smith and his son are sitting on a bench in the railway station and they pretend that the gadget is a time machine. They continue to pretend that they have been transported back in time and that the dinosaurs are out to get them. To seek safety, they enter a "cave", which is the toilet of the station. A beautiful rendition of an attempt to see light in the middle of the darkest night of their lives, this scene reminded me of the 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Jack Nicholson, in a brilliant spurt of acting in that movie, looks at the switched off television set and pretends to watch a baseball match. Everyone joins in and the celebrations go on until the fictitious match gets over. The power that this scene had ofcourse cannot be matched by Pursuit of Happyness, however, it does come close. For once, Will Smith shows that he can act. He is not just a butt-kicking, gun-yielding hip-hop singer-cum-dancer-cum-actor. He can actually act. I am not sure why he was overtaken by Forest Whitaker at the Oscars. The only reason I can think of is the inertia factor - no one was quite ready for the fact that he could act and hence had probably not given this movie any serious thought. My recommendation clearly is that this movie is a definite watch. Even if you are a die-hard critic, this movie has a few scenes that can make you sit up and notice your life beyond a bowl of popcorn.