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The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
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Reviews Counted:165
Fresh:109
Rotten:56
Average Rating:6.4/10
Consensus: Will Smith’s heartfelt performance elevates The Pursuit of Happyness above mere melodrama.
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $162,586,036
Synopsis: In The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a family man struggling to make ends meet. Despite his valiant attempts to help keep the family afloat, the mother (Thandie Newton) of his... In The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a family man struggling to make ends meet. Despite his valiant attempts to help keep the family afloat, the mother (Thandie Newton) of his five-year-old son Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith) is buckling under the constant strain of financial pressure. No longer able to cope, she reluctantly decides to leave. Chris, now a single father, continues doggedly to pursue a better-paying job using every sales skill he knows. He lands an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm, and although there is no salary, he accepts, hopeful he will end the program with a job and a promising future. Without a financial cushion, Chris and his son are soon evicted from their apartment and forced to sleep in shelters, bus stations, bathrooms, or wherever they can find refuge for the night. Despite his troubles, Chris continues to honor his commitment as a loving and caring father, using the affection and trust his son has placed in him as an impetus to overcome the obstacles he faces. Columbia Pictures presents in association with Relativity Media an Overbrook Entertainment/Escape Artists Production The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith, Thandie Newton and introducing Jaden Christopher Syre Smith. The film is directed by Gabriele Muccino and written by Steven Conrad. The producers are Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch, James Lassiter and Will Smith. The executive producers are Louis D’Esposito, Mark Clayman, David Alper and Teddy Zee. The director of photography is Phedon Papamichael, ASC. The production designer is J. Michael Riva. The film editor is Hughes Winborne, A.C.E. The costume designer is Sharen Davis. The music is by Andrea Guerra. The Pursuit of Happyness has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for Some Language. The Pursuit of Happyness will be released by Columbia Pictures on December 15, 2006. -- © Columbia Pictures [More]
Starring: Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Dan Castellaneta, Thandie Newton
Starring: Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Dan Castellaneta, Thandie Newton, Brian Howe
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Screenwriter: Steve Conrad
Producer: Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch, James Lassiter
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Reviews for The Pursuit of Happyness
Directed by talented young Gabriele Muccino, the film benefits from his outsider's observations, and he is far too smart a filmmaker to let schmaltz creep into the tone.
You have to wonder why director Gabriele Muccino chose to dramatize the poor man's plight by having him run constantly through the streets of San Francisco. What ever became of quiet desperation?
In his first English-language feature, Muccino plays it disappointingly safe, leaving creativity by the wayside and adopting a conservative by-the-numbers style. The result is terribly maudlin and predictable.
One can detect almost the spirit of a public information film nagging the audience: look, people, the American Dream doesn't come for free.
... The Pursuit of Happyness winds up being a little like the determined salesman Mr. Gardner himself: easy to root for, certainly, but not that much fun to spend time with.
In an effort to make a crowd-pleasing film, the horrors that Gardner must have experienced on the streets feel glossed over by the Hollywood machine.
Plays like an unravelling of the Eighties comedy hit Trading Places. Instead of a smart-Alec street hustler who turns the tables on his seemingly benign patrons, we have a smart saint who simply wants to join the club.
At its core The Pursuit of Happyness is a good story -- one that's literally rags to riches, and didn't need the many tweaks and embellishments that Italian director Gabriele Muccino and writer Steven Conrad have added.
This Sisyphean movie succeeds in portraying '80s era San Francisco as a deceptively appealing city with a flaky underbelly inhabited by desperate hippies and homeless people.
Of the many sad scenes in The Pursuit of Happyness, the saddest might be when Captain America is left behind.
By reducing the story of homelessness to only Chris Gardner's, The Pursuit of Happyness is saying that anybody can get out of the gutter by simply really, really wanting to do better.
Had we seen an intimate glimpse into the professional side of Gardner's journey, this likeable but unexceptional fable could have been so much more.
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