Will Smith is up for Best Actor so I saw this last night. It's based on the true story of Chris Gardner who while sometimes homeless with his young son, worked through a highly competitive internship to be a stock broker and became a millionaire. Smith plays Gardner and Smith's real life son Jaden plays Gardner's 5 year-old son Christopher.
The problem with such films is that you know the ending. So it comes down to whether the film can build up tension or emotional wallops. I think Ron Howard is the master of this with films like Apollo 13 and Cinderella Man. I don't know Italian director Gabriele Muccino's previous works but I don't think he's up to it. At 2 hours long there's plenty of time to develop everything but the film doesn't manage to. There are many scenes of Gardner running to catch something (a bus, a thief, a room at a shelter, another thief), but other stuff is missing. I would have liked to see more of him working at the internship, getting sales. He must have been good a this, and this is why he was better than others, it would have been nice to see it. Thandie Newton plays the screeching wife who leaves Gardner. She gives up her son after Smith says "you know you can't take care of him" but we don't know why that is. I get the sense some of her scenes were cut.
Smith is good in the role and is in every scene of the film, but I don't think it's an Oscar worthy performance. There are two scenes that are supposed to get to you. One when he cries that they are forced to spend the night in a subway bathroom. That was rock bottom. The other was in a shelter when Christopher tells his dad he's "a good Papa". These almost brought a tear to my eye, but not quite. When he finally gets the job I was waiting for the big scream "Yeah!" but instead we got him welling up and running into the street.
The wikipedia page lists some of the differences from the true story. For the most part I'm ok with the changes. The Rubix cube bit was good and making Christopher 5 instead of 2 helped. I had wondered why he didn't manage to sleep at work, it would save time and why Dean Witter didn't have a day care program he could use. Also the money all seem skewed. I'm not sure how he survived on $250 from selling a bone density scanner and blowing much of it on a hotel for the night. Saying the internship paid $1000 per month would have made more sense.
So it was ok to see, but if I had missed it I would not have been disappointed.
1 comment:
I saw this just before Christmas on a team outing...the premise being the movie was a "feel good" movie. But 98% of the movie was a "feel worse" movie as his predicament sunk lower and lower. He held up throughout it all. But only the last 5 minutes were "feel good". I guess I wanted a little more "feel good". I also didn't like that his "victory" was framed in financial terms, when I thought his victory was his relationship with his son and maintaining his values. He's a good actor, but I thought Thandie Newton was excellent in her supporting role.
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