The Pursuit of Happyness
In Europe, they work to live, but in America, we live to work: This is the axiom that Will Smith and his Italian director, Gabriele Muccino, keep in mind throughout “The Pursuit of Happyness.” The movie is a tough and bracing paean to the value of relentless toil. At nearly every turn, it dismisses sentimentality, committing instead to illuminating the scary fringes of the American dream. As Chris Gardner, a regular guy of irregular intelligence who nonetheless can’t make a decent living, Smith connects instantly and consistently. There’s not a moment of showboating or vanity in his determined, winning performance. Gardner is a striver who’s not afraid to fail. On the verge of ruin, he accepts an unpaid internship at Dean Witter while trying to figure out a way to keep his young son fed, clothed and sheltered.
Muccino has superb instincts for popular entertainment. San Francisco, where “The Pursuit of Happyness” takes place, looks great through his lens. He loves to shoot busy crowd scenes, with an agile camera that captures people walking the streets with authority, and he favors wall-to-wall orchestral music. It’s an airy, accessible, compulsively watchable style that’s perfectly in tune with Gardner, a man in perpetual motion. Muccino knows, too, when to ease off the accelerator. With a lesser director, the climax would be chokingly maudlin, but in his hands it’s austere and sublime. “The Pursuit of Happyness” is a crowd-pleaser that earns its warm-and-fuzzy sentiments.
LISTEN: The Pursuit of Happyness