A kindler, gentlerjungle?

Rating: 5/10 (26 September 2007)

I'd avoided this film because Will Smith, as an actor, did not impress me.
Well, I was wrong about Will Smith: in this story, he showed that he could produce the goods.
However, the story has been told so many times before: the down-and-nearly-out-hero who still manages to make it big against the odds, and with a young son in tow.
Ho-hum...
So, what's different (maybe the producer asked that question, too?)? Well, if the story is entirely true, Chris Gardner (Smith) got the door to wealth opened by solving the Rubick's Cube in front of his prospective employer, shortly after it came on the market in 1981. That's impressive: shows he could bring all his mental capacities into full force while under a lot of pressure. And, that was a well-done scene...
The other well-done scene is when Gardner succeeds in his quest for a job: the mixed expressions on his face are exquisite, even down to just the trace of a tear in his eyes as he shakes hands with his new bosses.
The rest of it is fairly pedestrian (no pun intended, as you will see) and predictable.
The big failing is this story is that it equates being happy with having a lot of money and shamelessly uses Jefferson's words from the Declaration of Independence as support. As the hero says to his son (Smith's real son): "Go get it!"
Granted, money is needed to survive in most societies. Beyond that, and even as our hero admits, being happy is a condition that we all want, but which none ever achieve, absolutely. I would simply add that only the truly insane can hope to be happy! And that's a thought that crossed my mind as our hero entered the broker pit for the first time...an aspect that was done to death in the bleak and very macho world of Wall Street (1987).
There are a few laughs, some tearjerker husband/wife scenes, and a bit about how the really destitute lived in San Franciso in the eighties.
Was it worth a couple of hours of my time? Nah... but you might like it.