Why the wrong spelling in the title of a movie? Well this spelling is symbolic for the painted writing on the wall outside of the poorly kept daycare center that Chris Gardener’s son went to in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness . While Chris was going through a number of financial struggles and he and his wife were both working very busy schedules, his son had to be put in daycare in a poor area of the city. At the beginning of the movie, Chris asks a worker when the spelling will be changed to happiness, almost sounding embarrassed because he sends his son to this daycare and the people there couldn’t even spell the word right. Chris eventually achieves his pursuit of happiness and it can be implied that he eventually was able to take his son out of this daycare center and afford a much better one. The Pursuit of Happyness was released in 2006 and was directed by Gabriele Muccino. The movie stars Chris Gardener (played by Will Smith) and his son Chris Jr. (played by Jaden Smith- how fitting it to be Will Smith’s son in real life!). In an attempt to make a living for himself and his family, Chris tries to sell portable bone density scanner machines. Unfortunately, it turns out that a lot of medical practices do not need them. Only selling a few scanners, with large periods of time in between each purchase, he puts a huge strain on his marriage, fails to meet payments, struggles to provide for his 5 year old child, and faces negative consequences in a number of other aspects of his day to day life. “I’m Chris Gardener. I met my father for the first time when I was 28 years old. I made up my mind that when I had children, my children were going to know who their father was.” Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness . Struggle after struggle, Chris’ situation becomes worse and worse and he knows he needs to find a new job. He takes a huge gamble by taking a non-paying internship competing against other interns for a chance to become a stockbroker. When Chris tells his wife he is interested in becoming a stockbroker she replies “Not an Astronaut?” Clearly she thinks his chances of getting a career like this are slim right from the start. The underlying theme of this movie is that hard work will get you anywhere. Even when everybody doubted him that he could make it as a stockbroker with his background and his living conditions, he did not let this stop him. He kept his mind set on his goals and was determined to make his future brighter for his family and in particular, his son, since he wanted a better life for him than he had. Even when everything around him told him that it was not meant to be, he knew deep down that everyone is capable of greatness and that he would get there if he continued to work hard. Will Smith was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for best actor with his performance in The Pursuit of Happyness . He truly embraced the emotions of Chris and his acting was spot on in difficult situations, making the movie incredibly realistic. Smith is also the narrator for the film and talks about his life in a series of stages making this film unique from different films. For example Chris narrates, “this part is called riding the bus”, “this part is called being stupid”, “this part is called running” and at times this aspect adds a bit of comedy. He tells the story about his life in the past demonstrating that there were struggles that he had to overcome and that he indeed did make mistakes. These struggles shaped who he was as a person and each experience/encounter that knocked him down only made each success that much more of an accomplishment. A notable feature of this film is that it is incredibly realistic and relatable to everyone that watches it. Success does not come to you easily in a wrapped up present. Rather it is a series of little successes along the way that amount to something even greater. Obviously that final accomplishment is what stands out the most but looking back, you can see how much more you have actually accomplished and how much you have learned throughout the journey. The Pursuit of Happyness had a Domestic Total Gross of $163,566,459 and a production budget of $55 million. The first week the movie was in theaters it made $38,286,895 and the second week it made even more, $40,762,334, which was an increase of 6.5%. Looking at the money the movie made, it was very successful and received high scores from several critics for its realistic acting and ability to connect to the real life story of Chris Gardener in which the movie is based off of.
