The Pursuit of Happyness

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The Pursuit of Happyness

Theatrical poster for The Pursuit of Happyness
Directed by Gabriele Muccino
Produced by Will Smith
Steve Tisch
Teddy Zee
Todd Black
Jason Blumenthal
Written by Steven Conrad
Starring Will Smith
Jaden Smith
Thandie Newton
Brian Howe
James Karen
Dan Castellaneta
Kurt Fuller
Scott Klace
Music by Andrea Guerra
Cinematography Phedon Papamichael
Editing by Hughes Winborne
Release date(s) December 15, 2006
Running time 117 minutes
Country USA
Language English
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Pursuit of Happyness is an Academy Award-nominated 2006 drama film produced by Overbrook Entertainment, Escape Artist, and Relativity Media, in association with and released by Columbia Pictures on December 15, 2006. Based on the true story of Chris Gardner, who secured an internship with a stock brokerage firm while homeless, the film stars Will Smith as Gardner and Smith's real-life son Jaden Smith as Gardner's son Christopher. Although the film differs from Gardner's real-life experiences in various respects, it recounts many of the unusual events faced by Gardner while pursuing the internship and caring for Christopher. The title of the movie is derived from the words of Thomas Jefferson in the United States Declaration of Independence; the misspelling of "happiness" refers to a theme in the movie where Gardner is upset that a mural decorating his son's daycare is incorrectly spelled. The film was directed by Gabriele Muccino, an Italian director making his English-language directorial debut.

Contents

The Pursuit of Happyness garnered positive reviews from critics with a 66 percent approval rating on the site Rotten Tomatoes. Michael Medved gave Pursuit of Happyness four stars (out of four) saying "..not even the most jaded movie goers will be able to resist this film's emotional pull with an ultimately inspiring message about the implacable power of love and determination."[1] Jaden Smith in particular has been praised, due in part to "his natural, low-key quality" that is "both astounding and moving."[2]

The film debuted at number-one at the box-office, making $27 million during its opening weekend and beating out such heavily-hyped films as Eragon and Charlotte's Web. It was Will Smith's sixth consecutive number-one opening; it has made $162,586,036 as of March 29, 2007.

  • Throughout the film, Will Smith's character is often shown on the BART system, but even though the train network opened on September 11, 1972, it was not yet fully built out in its present form in the year the movie was set, 1981 (although at that time, all of the main BART subway lines within the cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley were in daily revenue service).
  • In 1981, most of the buildings shown in the San Francisco skyline shots were not completed yet.
  • Although in the film Chris is selling Bone-density scanners the equipment for this technology was not invented until 1987, while the film is set six years earlier.
  • When Chris is running in the city you can see a man on a cell phone.
  • When Chris runs from the taxi cab driver, he gets in modern subway trains.
  • When Chris gets into the yellow cab with Mr. Twistle, the tail lights of the caprice cab are for year models 1986-1990 while the movie was set in 1981 and should show tail lights for year models 1980-1985 caprice.
  • Also when Chris and Christopher is at then-Candlestick Park now Monster Park The stadium surroundings contains present-day logos of the San Francsico 49ers, Monster Cable, and Coca-Cola signs as the scene pans through the stadium. Also, you can see members of the 2005-2006 49ers players playing on the field.

  • Most significantly, Gardner's internship was a $1,000 monthly stipend, but the film claims "there was no salary."
  • Linda never existed. The mother of his child was "Jackie," his mistress whom he left his wife for when she became pregnant. Also, she initially took Chris Jr. away for many months before bringing him to Chris to raise. They were never married but eventually had another child together.
  • While the film shows Chris Jr. at the age of five, he was only two years old at the time of the events of this film.
  • Because of the age of Chris Jr., the interactions in the film did not occur. However, the scene where Chris tells him "You're a good poppa" did, in fact, occur.
  • The Rubik's Cube incident never happened. Smith came up with that idea, because he has always been fascinated with Rubik's cubes.
  • He actually spent ten days in jail for not paying his parking tickets.
  • He eventually started at Bear Stearns.
  • The actual events and his homelessness happened over the course of a few years rather than a short time as shown in this movie.
  • He sometimes spent the night underneath his desk when the shelters were full.
  • Gardner quit his job as salesman before entering the stock broker training program.
  • Gardner's medical equipment was never stolen from him.
  • In the movie Gardner states that he is from Louisiana, but Gardner is actually from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. However, Gardner's book indicates that his father resided in Louisiana at that time.
  • Gardner was not hit by a car.
  • The IRS going into his account to take his money did not happen.
  • He met with the "red Ferrari" man after the initial meeting to learn more about what the job involved. It was not simply a one-minute conversation.

  1. ^ Michael Medved. Audio review of The Pursuit of Happyness. Retrieved on 2006-12-18.
  2. ^ Oscar pursuit of Jaden Smith would be natural by Claudia Puig, USA Today, December 22, 2006 section E1

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Preceded by
Apocalypto		 Box office number-one films of 2006 (USA)
December 17, 2006		 Succeeded by
Night at the Museum
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pursuit_of_Happyness"
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