Hollywood emotional impulses ring hollow

Rating: 6/10 (3 March 2007)

It is important to note that The Pursuit of Happiness is ostensibly a rags to riches story, despite spending almost its entire runtime kicking Smith's ass and just generally be a real downer. Unfortunately, there's no room at all for Smith's personality to shine through, and then from there it's almost as if he's more concerned about getting an elusive acting trophy. While the child thesp is a real find being Smith's son, his verbosity eventually gets annoying succumbing into the trap many young actors fall into.
As for it's auxillary messages (every movie like this needs at least the one), it really doesn't get much through considering that every stranger Smith's character meets seems sorta pleasant, polite or just plain ignorant but most strikingly, with no preconceptions of race and class being highlighted despite Gardner's background. It just shows Chris Gardner as a good man, great father, even better worker who's just unfairly yet to find a place in this nice little world. As for it being a comedy, the only thing jaunty about this film is the spiteful little percussion that plays as a frantic Gardner runs after his livelihood time and time again. Very calculating. Very cloying.