A success story that doesn't quite take off

"There is no y in happiness," says Will Smith's character in The Pursuit of Happyness, "there is an i." Swap the word why for y, and make i a pronoun, and there's the theme of Smith's latest hit. There's really no reason why he - or anyone, for that matter-can't be happy; anyone can merely choose to be, as Smith's character did.

Directed by Gabriele Muccino, The Pursuit of Happyness is inspired by the life of Chris Gardner, businessman and best-selling author of an autobiography with the same title. The film takes a lot of liberties with his life story, though, so it's important to make it clear that it's not "based on" but "inspired by" Gardner's rags-to-riches life.

It stars Will Smith as Gardner, Smith's son Jaden as Gardner's son Christopher, and Thandie Newton as his wife Linda. It's eight-year-old Jaden's first movie, and he very nearly steals the spotlight from his superstar father. I'd go as far as saying if it weren't for Jaden's refreshing candidness, The Pursuit of Happyness wouldn't have been as successful. In fact, I think Jaden was its saving grace.

Set in the 1980s, the movie opens with Gardner as a failure of a medical salesman. He lugs around a 40-pound bone density scanner all day, calling on various doctors all over the city to sell his expensive, but unmarketable piece of equipment. Later on, it is shown that Gardner had spent all his life savings on his stock of bone density scanners, mistakenly thinking the business to be profitable. He and his wife are broke, and they have a five-year-old son to worry about. Quite predictably, the strain on their finances takes a toll on their relationship, and Linda leaves him and their son behind.

Around the same time his wife leaves, an almost penniless Gardner makes his bid for an internship with Dean Witter, a brokerage firm. It's his last hope for a financial turnaround, and he gives it his all. It's quite a gamble because the internship lasts for six months, he wouldn't be getting any pay during that period, and only one out of the twenty interns would be hired at the end of the program. As if that wasn't daunting enough, Gardner has to contend with their being thrown out of their apartment. It isn't long before they find themselves homeless. In one touching scene-which probably earned Smith the Oscar nod-they are forced to sleep on the floor of a public toilet. The film is marketed as a success story, though, so everyone knows it's going to have a happy ending.

Thanks to the buzz, I had such high expectations of this movie, but they weren't all met. I think the film's problem is that it presents viewers with one frustrating situation after another for Gardner, but gives no real cause for it outside of himself, except for a passing television clip of then-President Ronald Reagan delivering a speech about the country's current economic situation. The film's conflict is man versus himself, sure, but I found it to be very stressful to watch Gardner suffer one blow after another without any real opponent. In fact, almost everyone around him is quite nice. Halfway into the movie, I was begging for Christopher's comic relief.

Another problem, I believe, is that while Gardner succeeds against all odds, the how of it all is glossed over. Sure, he meets one big contact by going to this man's house one weekend and gets himself invited to a football game, hobnobs with his contact's equally big-time friends, and it's uphill from there, but the stockbroker skills that are vital for his success are shown only as far as cold calling or making nice with important people.

He goes through the difficult preparation the internship requires-plenty of scenes show him studying-but its application isn't shown. In the end, even though I know the real Chris Gardner is now a multi-millionaire, I'm not quite convinced Smith's Chris Gardner is going to succeed, or that he's going to be happy. As far as I'm concerned, he only got a great job, but things can still go both ways.

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