Posted by
Emmett of the Unblinking Eye on Friday, December 15, 2006 6:54:23 PM
Every once and a while a movie comes along that you'd really like to like. Maybe it's because the star -- say, Will Smith, for example -- is so likable and talented that you ache for the movie to succeed. Or maybe it introduces someone -- say, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (that's a mouthful), Will Smith's real son -- who gives such an understated, realistic performance as a child torn between two warring parents (Smith and Thandie Newton) that you really care about what happens to him. Or maybe it's just a Friday afternoon.
But much as I'd like
Pursuit of Happyness to work, it just doesn't. Part of the problem is that Smith is so likable as a born salesman with bad judgment trying to sell a product he already bought that hardly anyone really needs. He deserves success, you want him to succeed, and life just keeps kicking him when he's down. Even when he gets his potential big break with an unpaid internship at Dean Witter, things just keep piling on. So many bad things happen to him and his son, and they are both in such dire straits, that the film simply wears you down. By the time it's over, you leave with more of a sense of relief than anything else. Sort of like watching
Saw, I imagine. And that's not how I want to leave a movie.
Not that the movie's a total loss. The relationship between Smith and his son and their respective performances are top-notch, and the portrayal of San Francisco in 1981 is pretty accurate. But the pluses don't come close to outweighing the minuses.