The Pursuit of Happiness

Rating: 8/10 (12 May 2012)

The Pursuit of Happiness (2006) Director – Gabriele Muccino Cinematograph – Phedon Papamichael Writer – Steven Conrad Editor – Hughes Winborne
Moral: As trite as they come, don't let anyone convince you to give up on your dreams.
The Pursuit of Happiness is an inspirational story of optimism and honesty. In 1981 San Francisco, Chris Gardner (Protagonist) invests his family's savings in portable bone-density scanners which he tries to demonstrate and sell to doctors. The investment proves to be a disappointment, which financially breaks the family and as a result, his girlfriend leaves him and moves to New York.
While finding it extreme difficult to sell his bone scanners, Chris wants a better life for his family. Chris Gardner is tossed all over the place due to lack of cash and finance. He suffers a lot of mishaps with his son looking on as they move around the city. And the idea he latches onto, because it does not require a college education, but could still pay off big time, is to become a stockbroker. So, Chris pursues his happiness (or happiness) through a six month unpaid internship program with 19 others, in the hopes that, at the end, he will be the one chosen for employment.
With sleepless nights working on the broken bone-density scanner and disadvantaged by his limited working hours, Chris develops a number a ways to maximize his client contacts and profits as it is the only to earn the one paid position. Regardless of his challenges, Chris never reveals his lowly circumstance to his co-workers, even going so far as to lend one of his bosses five dollars for a cab, a sum he can't afford. The Pursuit of Happiness is the pursuit of Chris Gardner becoming a successful stock broker from a homeless nomad. The Pursuit of Happiness concludes with a caption that tells us what happens to Chris after the end of the movie. It promises a better story than the one we have just watched. - Mayank Bhattacharya