The Pursuit of Happyness : a tribute to the never-say-die spirit !

One of the most realistic movies I have ever seen. This movie has got it all in terms of the difficulties a common man can face in this world in order to achieve a livelihood...

The story is set in 1981 at San Francisco where in Chris Gardener is a hard working salesman, who has a wife and a 5 year old kid. His real intellectual talent is best described in the scene where in he solves the Rubik's cube in matter of minutes ! But the directors are in no mood to showcase this awesome talent of Chris's...they are here to discuss quite simply ...his life!

Chris is just simply struggling to make ends meet.

His life is now at a stage where in things just don’t seem to go his way. First he is not able to find buyers for this 'unique' medical instrument that he sells for a living. As a result there is a growing economic degradation which propels his wife to finally move out to New York looking for her own independent job. He loses his car and gradually the trust of his wife who makes up her mind to leave him as he is just not able to manage the daily burgeoning expenses of the family.

Chris convinces his wife to make his son stay with him. He could have simply let go of his son with his wife who is at least assured of a job and a house to live in. This shows the determination of Chris to support his family even though he is not in a position to do so at the current moment. This is the character of Chris which will be tested right through the film.

Luck seems to go just in the opposite direction as Chris is not able to pay the rent of his house and unfortunate circumstances also force him to end up temporarily in jail. Later on, a gypsy steals one of Chris's medical instrument of which he is desperately trying to sell to make some money that can sustain him and his son. The desperation that sets on him at that stage - having no means to earn his daily bread and also the emotional trauma due to his wife leaving him and the question of how he will be able to support his kid - is depicted in great earnest by Will Smith- something a guy only of his caliber is capable of doing....

Anyways moving on, things seem to lookup when he meets a senior employee of a financial firm who offers him a job at his firm provided he clears the interview. At the interview Chris is selected but only for an internship of which he won’t be paid anything during its period and at the end they may be a chance that he may be selected to work as a broker. This is strictly based on his performance in the exam at the end of the internship in which they are a class full of hopeful candidates competing eagerly for a single position. And above it the exams requires Chris to read up a fat economic book of which he has no clue about and at the same time he is expected to get maximum clients for his firm ...A situation which can be best described as "Maximum pain with simply no guaranteed gain" ...This situation is in addition to his growing troubles where in he is thrown out of his lodge due to his inability to pay rent which in turn forces him to go for the homeless shelter which is a real hard thing to get due to the sheer number of people who are competing for it.

There are many 'golden' moments in the film so beautifully enacted by Will Smith that you just stop to wonder whether it is the celluloid you are watching or is there real life out there where in characters like Chris are a reality. I guess it is so…But kudos to the sheer acting prowess of Will Smith for making it realize on the audience...

Life is not exactly a carpet of roses for Chris as he has to fight at every step in his life - once with a defaulter to get the last room in a homeless shelter, has to give 5 dollars out of the ten dollars to his boss who doesn’t happen to have change for his taxi, that out of sheer obligation that he is the person who will decide to give him a job or not...

Amidst all this, he is studying hard during the night for the internship exam while during the day he has the hardest task of putting a smiling, assured face in front of customers of which he has to get policies from. It is no easy joke to get policies from ever-careful customers who seem to like Chris for his conversation ability but are reluctant to commit their money for policies that Chris is offering - something which will decide his livelihood - in its literal sense...! man! What a hardship !

And there is the the innocent character of Chris's son who is incapable of understanding the hardships of his father but loves him for the person he his...The directors do a very delicate job of portraying this character - of all the mental prejudices a 5 year old can develop, of the ignorance of a kid, of the simple playfulness - they show the kid as a person living in his own fantasy world in spite of the real harsh world his father is facing ....an irony of life truly!!

There is a moment in the film where in, Chris, out of chance, finds the guy who stole his medical instrument. The thief happens to believe that the instrument is a 'time machine' - which is so rightly described philosophically - as the stolen instrument is the index of the rough times that Chris faces and the recovery pf the instrument indirectly signals the good times coming ahead in Chris's life.

He discovers that the instrument is broken and needs some components to repair for which he has no money. He has to donate blood to make some money out of which he buys the necessary spare parts for the instrument. The directors then depict one beautiful moment when Chris fixes the instrument and the light from the working instrument falls on the innocent, sleeping kid of Chris's who Chris has been struggling to support ! what a moment !

Chris then manages to sell the instrument and then moves to a proper lodge from the cramped, inhabitable homeless shelters.

Then comes "the moment" in the film ...Chris is called to meet directors of the firm he was working on his last day of internship. This meeting is supposed about informing Chris whether he earned a job in the firm or lost out to some other candidate in which case he is back to old, unemployed, struggling days.. a thought which is simply nightmarish to think of ! ...In the meeting, the Director tells Chris that it is not the last day for him and tomorrow would be the first day for Chris - as an employee of the firm he was an intern so far !

The state of feeling that Chris goes through at that exact moment is the essence of the whole movie! Man! I just love to see that part again and again! What a beautiful expression on Will Smith's face! Hats off to him for such a brilliant performance!

In other words, the feeling of "happyness" sets on the never-give-up Chris which is an indication of the end of all the hardships he had to face to earn a simple livelihood....a truly apt title indeed !