October 12, 2007

The Pursuit of Happyness

I remember seeing a trailer for The Pursuit of Happyness a while back, and thinking it must be an excellent film. Will Smith is an amazing actor who happens to be a real person and who has the ability to portray a real person, unlike many other actors. The story sounded inspirational, and very well done. That turned out to be true, and I really liked this movie.

Although not entirely accurate, the film is extremely close to the real life story of Christopher Gardner, who transformed his life from that of a homeless single father to that of financial security and independence, by pursuing his dream while never giving up on his son. Twenty years later, the real Chris Gardner is an extremely successful man, who pursued and obtained happiness, and is enjoying life.

The two main characters of the film are Chris Gardner and his son, Christopher, played by Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith respectively. Both of them give outstanding performances, although Jaden probably didn't have to act as anything other than himself for most scenes. I thought it was an amazing display of ability how Will Smith portrays such a devoted and caring father who sometimes loses it when he's faced with the loss of his son, or the inability to care for his family, and the stress and uncertainty of it all gets to him. When frantic, he can't help but lash out at those around him, even at his son. Jaden has a few great acting scenes at those times, which I'm sure must have been very strange to him since I'm sure his father doesn't act that way in real life.

Posted by josuah at October 12, 2007 5:14 AM UTC+00:00