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Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Pursuit of Happyness

The Pursuit of Happyness is a 2006 drama film based on Chris Gardner`s close to one-year struggle with homelessness. Will Smith plays Gardner`s role and what definitely adds value to the movie is young Jaden Smith, Will Smith`s son, playing Gardner`s son Christophjer Jr. Film is directed by Gabriele Muccino.
The film takes the audience back to the year of 1981, when in San Francisco, Chris Gardner has invested his family`s savings in portable bone-density scanners. And his plan is to sell them to doctors to support his family. But doctors find the scanners unnecessary and expensive as they give only a slightly denser picture than the x-ray. That financially breaks the family and as a result, his wife, who had been working double shifts for months, can`t take it anymore and leaves him to move to New York. Their son remains with the father. On one fatal day while downtown trying to sell a scanner, Chris incidentally meets a stockbroker, who tells him that Dean Witter is recruiting interns. The stranger appears very happy to Chris. In fact, he finds everybody leaving and going into the Dean Witter`s building happy. Happy because they are financially secured. Happy because they probably don`t have to worry about unpaid bills or how to feed themselves and a child with five dollars. Happy for being financially secured. And financial security, is what the singel parent, Chris, seems to desire most in the world at that moment. Therefore he decides to apply for the internship. And although, on the applicaton he has nothing to write on the three lines reserved for education after high school, he gets it. Unfortunately it`s an unpaid postiton and he yet has to prove himself better than other interns to get a paid position on the firm. That is when the real struggle begins. A struggle that leaves Chris no choice but to find refuge for him and his child in a homeless center more than a few times and even sleep in a public toilet
Before starting writing, I took some time to read what others have wrote about this movie. I stumbled on a review that depreciated everything but Jaden Smith`s performance, saying that Chris Gardner`s incredible story definitely needed to be made into a film but this one just isn`t it. As I am not that familiar with Chris Gardner`s story, I only have seen this movie and don`t know anything more about the guy, I can`t agree or disagree with that reviewer. But I can say, that this movie as an inpsiring and dramatic story about fatherhood, is just fantastic. And that every child would be happy to have a father like Chris Gardner.
The tomatometer gives this one 6.4 points out of 10 and IMDB`s users 7.8. As this truly was 117 minutes of my life spent watching a great and heart touching movie, I must say, I agree more with IMDB`s users on this one or no. I don`t agree. It deserves more. I`d give it at least 8.5 points out of 10. And I do recommend it to anyone and especially to all the dads.

37 comments:

  1. This is an awesome movie, if you haven't watched it yet, do it!

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  2. Really need to watch this sometime, heard lots of great stuff about it.

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  3. Im a manly man and I got real sad with this movie..

    Lifted weights afterwards to regain manlyness to safe levels but still, good movie and sad also..

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  4. Didn't watch this...
    Gonna check it out!

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  5. Yeah really good movie, that is tough to say with Will Smith movies now a days, but I guess he can't make them all a bunch of turds.

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  6. Good review, I liked this movie, pretty touching. I think I agree with the imdb rating more than the tomato dudes.

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  7. really good movie
    recommend it to everyone

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  8. I really liked that movie. I give it an 8.

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  9. I love this movie :)

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  10. I was wondering what i should watch next.. This seems like a good candidate. Thanks for the review!

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  11. i have seen it and i thought it was really good :) i like your review on it too

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  12. yea really liked this film :D Will Smith is a bit of a legend.

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  13. Really beautiful movie, never mind what those ratings say.

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  14. It was a great movie, really touching.

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  15. never seen it, but I've heard great thing about this film. Added to the list.

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  16. If we allow Obama to continue his attack on America, pretty soon we'll all be sleeping in homeless shelters!

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  17. I love this movie, it's one of my all time faves. Will Smith is the only actor that can make me cry honestly.

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  18. Anything with Will Smith is!.. Well, this was decent though, I have to admit that!

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  19. That was a good movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it and Will Smith's acting.

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  20. I love this movie, but never watch it because it get's me all depressed

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  21. I've been meaning to see this movie for a long time now. Thanks for reminding me about it, I want to see it more than ever now!

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  22. This was GREAT movie! Not my favorite

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  23. Loved this film! It's amazing how many movies I've watched, enjoyed, but couldn't remember the title a few years later, and just couldn't find them. I've found every single one of those "forgotten" movies on other people's blogs! Thank you for this post.

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  24. Awesome movie, one of my favorites :)

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  25. Great movie, Will Smiths best in my opinion

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  26. Re-watched it yesterday.. Great movie, really :)

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  27. I AM FURIOUS!!! I have been having such problems with bloody Blogger AND the internet. It took nearly half a day to put out my last post. Ridiculous! I tried to open your page several times, but I kept getting timed out. My dashboard didn't give me any of your updates either. Now, when I logged in, my dashboard showed only your blog and all the posts you have done, no one else's. Weird! Sorry I missed you.

    I must confess, I've not seen this movie. I have a lot of sadness in my own life, so I tend to avoid sad movies, even the touching ones. I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)

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    1. Good to hear from you. It`s been ages. Yes-yes, I know what you mean. Blogger is a *********. Yep blogger is whatever dirty word you find that has so many letters in it. Didn`t really count my *`s as I wrote them.
      It makes your eyes wet, indeed, but it has a happy ending. So it`s still good.:)

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  28. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  29. Fucking Blogger just swallowed my comment. Here we go, round 2!

    In other shenanigan news: I just opened my blog and found the my title and gadgets font had mysteriously changed themselves. I had to reset it with the template designer. WTF???!!!

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  30. Sorry for the delete, it was the same message. Turns out it didn't swallow it after all. I think Blogger is a female! :)

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  31. I have only seen the quote in YouTube about pursuing your dreams. I think I should watch the whole movie now :)

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