A Tight, Compact, and Insightful Look At Today's Difficult Life

Rating: 8/10 (20 January 2019)

15 July 2008. Mr. Everyman, with a dream out of reach, gets a chance to pursue it. When faced with the reality of a unraveling marriage and dead-end job, along with a son in tow, a man must choose life or avoidance. It's not an easy path that Will Smith as Chris Gardner (based on a real life character) decides to embark on. In the movie, the situations are representative of real life experience, a sampling of emotion and conditions, or luck and deliberate actions that most of us can relate to. The difficulties between Chris Gardner and his wife in the movie are most successfully depicted until one of their most critical scenes that seems somewhat downplayed or inconsistently played out. However, a vast majority of this movie is an amazing glimpse into a variety of images compiled over a segment in Chris Gardner's life that captures a lot of compact dramatic moments - just as a photographer or novelist is able to bring together life in one comprehensible accomplishment for an audience to experience in just under two hours. We almost forget Will Smith as an actor. We are moved in this movie a number of times. Whether or not the pursuit of happiness in 2008 would be the same is questionable in today's economy. Whether or not Chris Gardner's wife had sufficient development during the rest of the movie is uncertain or at least how a child would really react over the subsequent script in which the movie is on display is likely underdeveloped. Nevertheless, this is an important portrayal of a human family in our times with a universal message for everyman and perhaps every woman. Eight out of Ten Stars.