FILM REVIEW
“Don’t ever let somebody tell you, you can’t so something.” - Will Smith as Chris Gardner.
“The Pursuit of Happyness” [sic] directed by Gabriele Muccino is a film that deals with class struggle. Will Smith stars as a dad struggling to survive in a competitive world, trying to make a life for him and his son. What is interesting about this film, is that is has the quality of the Italian neorealist cinema of the 1940’s and 50’s. Films like “Bicycle Thieves”, “Shoeshine”, “Rome Open City”. It gets right at the heart of what poverty is all about, desperation.
The film portrays a simple story that is truthful to the reality of poverty. Based on the real-life rag to riches story of stock-broker Chris Gardner. Will smith plays a troubled dad with a deteriorating relationship to his wife, no college education, a son he can barely afford to feed, an apartment so backed up on rent that homelessness is just beyond the horizon and yet he has a dream, for a better life for him and his son. This film spoke to me, because I saw my own parents struggle so much, sometimes in life, the odds seem so great and so insurmountable but with a little bit of hope and a lot of hard work you can see your way to the other side. The human spirit cannot be broken or tarnished if it remains true. At one point in the film, even when things are starting to look good, Gardner and his son are evicted from their apartment, with only 22 dollars to sustain them over an indefinite period, until Grander is finished with his internship and becomes a licensed stockbroker, they are forced to take residence in a bathroom at the end of a subway line. This is what poverty looks like, in America and across the world. People broken by a system that does not care or flinch at the suffering of others. In fact, it revels in it, for some to do well, others must suffer, people talk about capitalism and its winners, but what about the losers? A 200-hundred-dollar smart phone made in a factory by underpaid workers in Hong Kong, a factory whose smoke is so thick the workers must wear masks as they drudge through an endless assembly line barely illuminated by an eight-watt bulb. Are they winners? Or are they victims?
Another incredible element in the film that directly intersects with class, is the issue of race. Is racism and classism part of the same structure? Yes, in many ways it is, and the film explores the avenues of that hypocrisy. Gardner is a black man, with no college education, the only decent job he can find is as a medical device salesman, a job only based on commission that does not pay very much. There is no avenue of escape for Gardner until one day by fortune or providence he meets a man parking his Ferrari, he asks him what he does for a living and the man answers that he is a stockbroker. This ignites something within Gardner and places him on a culminating quest towards redemption. Gardner decides from then on to be a stockbroker. The movie however shows that the road to Damascus, the right way as the film would suggest is still paved with danger and obstructions. When Gardner and his son get evicted, there is more than just homelessness presented on the screen, but the real looming possibility of starvation, an American family not so removed from our time starving to death on screen.
“The pursuit of happyness” fits comfortably in the genre of films that deal with class struggle and the trials of poverty. A genre that originated with the Italian neorealist cinema of the 1940’s and 50’s. Gardner like Antonio in “Bicycle Thieves’ is a dad on the wrong side of luck just struggling to keep his family alive. Then an opportunity enters his life, Antonio is offered a steady job putting up posters over Rome, the only problem is that he must have a bike, after his bike is stolen, all hope seems lost, he cannot get that better job without the bike, like Grander when he gets an internship as a stockbroker but suddenly finds himself homeless. What does these films say about the way we live? That a better life is attainable but only with the proper tools, the system is brutal and often unforgiving, and so many are crushed ruthlessly under its wheels.
I think if somebody were to watch this film the biggest thing they would take from it, is how inequality works in this country, both racial and economic, it isn’t something that’s happening in very distant places like Tennessee or Wyoming but urban San Francisco, everywhere in America, you do need to go that far or out to get a sense of culture shock, segregation and disparity are everywhere, the most segregated school district in our country is not some remote alley of Texas but New York City. The system sprints for some and for others it crawls. Our nation needs to rebuild itself expanding the fruit of its democracy to all it is citizens. One aspect of the film that they did gloss over, was the fact that both Gardner and his son were relatively healthy but living under those conditions would influence their health, I think it’s personally disgusting to want to charge sick people money to get better. No, I do not understand how this country prides itself on its religious and moral foundation and yet is blind to the suffering of others. Jesus cured the sick, but I am not entirely sure if he asked them for a credit card afterwards, personally I would think that would defeat its own purpose. Once thing I love about this film and films like it, is that it does at least within me inspire my noble spirit, something we all need to connect to. There is a nobility in poverty, I know it, because I have lived it and I have seen it within my own parents and family. But it does not have to be that hard. We can if we try be a little bit nicer to each other. We can forge a better society with more opportunity for everyone, a more level playing field, more access to education and healthcare, a society where your worth is not immediately reduced to a paycheck, a society that values humanity over cold mechanical production, a society where its citizens are truly free and unobstructed to achieve the highest range of their happiness.