MOVIE REVIEW - "The Pursuit of Happγness"

This weekend, my girlfriend and I saw Will Smith's latest, and deliberately titled, flick, "The Pursuit of Happγness."
Story.
The story is inspired by the real-life experiences of a father trying to raise his 5-year-old son, alone, while walking around with the proverbial dark cloud raining all over him. We watch as Smith's characters' circumstances change from a family of two working adults and child to being solo, broke, homeless, and all but hopeless.

And yet, he continues to pursue the faint light in the darkness that surrounds him.

Since I first heard about the life of the man who inspired this tale, I was hooked. Hearing Smith would play the lead role, with his real-life young son, Jaden, playing his characters' son, decreased my interest in seeing this film, but not enough to avoid it altogether.


Acting.
Smith's acting was decent enough, as was Jaden's. In fact, I was surprised at how much more I enjoyed the boy's acting. That probably has more to do with my own unfair assumptions about this child I don't know from Adam. I actually found his acting more engaging than his father's. He seemed like a really sweet kid playing the role of a really sweet kid. Nothing wrong with that.

The older Smith continued to be a star playing a role, in my eyes, unfortunately. That affected my enjoyment of his performance, although I remained engaged throughout the feature. It's hard to find much fault with his portrayal besides the moments where he's supposed to cry. To me, those were clincher moments that Smith really needed to nail.

I didn't think he did, but my girlfriend disagreed. She may be right.

I'm not sure I completely divested myself of the expectations and assumptions that might color my perceptions of Mr. Smith's performance. When I first heard he was playing the role, I was disappointed as I just didn't feel that he had the acting chops for this kind of role.

His anger and determination played well, though. I believed him and, now that I think about it a little more, I may have actually forgotten who he was during some of those moments.

Overall, the acting was better than average. Thandie Newton pulled a Charlize and looked the roughest I've ever seen her. It helped me stop thinking of her as that woman with the perfect skin who was in that Tom Cruise movie. Solid acting from her in this - possibly as good as her performance in Crash.

Perhaps to Smith's credit, he seemed to have shed some of the muscle-mass he's gained and sported for some of his most recent films. Between that, his afro, and his facial hair, he looked less like a superstar with access to an in-home cooking staff and personal trainer and more like a man who was taking a Rodney King-style ass-whuppin' from life.

I will say, though, that I look forward to some dark-skinned families being shown a bit more - especially in this case where Smith's much lighter than the man he was portraying.


Storytelling.
The storytelling was sound except for one or two critical areas. The one I'm thinking of didn't necessarily break the movie, but it made Smith's character's circumstances more of his own design than simply a result of circumstances beyond his control.

For this film to work best, we needed to feel that Smith's character had more or less done the best he could in an all but impossible situation. The mother's situation, however, was never explored as much as I feel it should've been.

In fact, perhaps ironically, the situation seemed very much like a joke young Jaden shared during the film. Without spoiling, it basically pointed out how, sometimes, we bypass the things that could make our lives easier, for no good reason.

For this type of movie, this kind of mistake should never have been made. I don't know if most people noticed it, but it affected my enjoyment of the film a little.



Recommended?
Yes.

It's got flaws, but it's still a heckuva ride.