The Pursuit of Happyness

Will Smith in one of his best performances in a movie so inspiring that it can make one introspect and wonder at the excellence & finesse people put into pursuing their dreams. The mix of emotional turmoils that Will Smith, playing Chris Gardner, undergoes to make the ends meet while keeping his son protected and motivated is truly touching.The last scene when Will Smith & son walks down the road was a surprise!A must watch for everyone!Cheers!Novin

excellent movie.....every movie freak should have this movie, worth buy....i must only say superb movie....superb print and superb audio.......

Got to have this in your collection ,a classic.disc was great and fulfilled expectations.

Superb motivational film. I like it. Thanking amazon and the seller.

Excellent Movie, Quick delivery!!

Great movie, excellent picture quality on blu-ray but pretty low audio volume. I could barely hear the dialogs with maximum volume in my home theatre.

Una gran película super recomendada, y el producto llegó en perfectas condiciones y sin contratiempos. Super recomendada. La encargue junto con el libro de esta misma el cual ya quiero, comenzar a leer.

Will Smith does a great job and the acting in general was very good. The movie was depressing and I'm not sure that there was anything of value to be gained by watching it...

Alles, wie gewünscht.

To direct this movie, Will Smith hand-picked Italian director Gabriele Muccino, whose previous two films Will had seen and was greatly impressed with. This was to be Muccino's first English-speaking movie, and his first time directing non-Italian speaking people.The result is Will's best performance in any film yet. Will himself (in the "Making Persuit" fetaurette on this DVD) proclaims this film as his greatest achievement to date.I have to agree that choosing a European director was a very wise choice. It gives the film a realism and a point of view that would have been hard to find in a Hollywood director. Muccino's saw this as an "American dream" come true story, and how a father-son relationship should be.The final scene, showing Gardner's final interview with the Big Bosses including his reaction once he gets outside the building, was possibly the most touching moment I have ever seen in a movie. His expression and reaction was so real, so emotional I couldn't help but cry with him for joy and for his pain through the journey. The perfect choice to end the film.Extras:# Father and Son: Onscreen and OffThis is a great introduction to Will's son, Jaden. It shows that the filmmakers were reluctant to consider him at first. It was only after testing thousand of boys in three weeks (and not being happy with any of them) that director Gabriele Muccino asked the other producers if they thought it would be ok to audition Will's son. Jaden blew the other kids out of the water in the tests and the chemistry between him and Will made their relationship on film all the more real.# The Man Behind the Movie: A Conversation with Chris GardnerThis is a short featurette (8-9 minutes) with clips from an interview with the real Chris Gardner. It was interesting to learn that the real Reverend who ran the outreach center where Chris and his son stayed a few nights, Rev. Cecil Williams, played himself in the film. Chris Gardner insisted on it! The location was also the real place. Chris said that without Cecil Williams, thousands of San Fransisco's homeless (including Gardner) would be in desperate trouble or even dead. We also learn that the subway-bathroom where Chris and son spend a night was an exact replica of the real one. We learn that the director insisted they use real homeless people as extras to play many of the homeless! And many other interesting facts.# Making Pursuit: An Italian Take on the American DreamThis is where we learn the most about the choice of Gabriele Muccino as director. A fantastic featurette documenting the making of the film, specifically experienced from a first-time English-speaking-movie director. Imagine directing actors and a crew in your second or third language and not being able to express your thoughts or ideas very well because you don't know the words! Fascinating how he pulled it off!# Inside the Rubik's CubeA short featurette (under 6-7 mins) about the rubics cube. It was invented by a Hungarian. In the 80's 1 out of 4 households had one. The HUGE success helped bring Hungary out of communism. And more history. Also a bit about "cubing" today.# "I Can" Song (audio only)A song written for the film, but not used in the theatrical release. Nice, but hard to *only* listen to a song (without seeing video attached) since this is a dvd.# Audio commentary with director Gabriele MuccinoCommentaries are some of my favorite features on DVD's. But they are either hit or miss. This one was very good! Muccino starts off explaining how he got involved with the film (hand-picked by Will Smith) and his initial meetings with Will where they discussed their visions for the story. He described some of the challenges directing such a HUGE production, including the insane amount of extras in some scenes (he says American extras are the most professional he has ever encountered), to the period cars (some scenes had well over 100 cars from the period (early '80s), to how he selected and then directed some of the actors. He expresses his deep admiration and respect for Will Smith as an actor and how well Smith took critique and direction.An EXCELLENT film with some great extras. I highly recommend this to anybody who loves their family and wants to pursue a dream! :)

I wanted to review Will Smiths 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness, which I just saw last week. To explain why I choose to review this film I must first explain why I avoided it for so long. Happyness was released in 2006, 8 years before this review. I remember the trailers for it back then and I remember thinking "oh great another rags to riches story this time starring Will Smith, he must be trying to get an Oscar nod. " After passing on the film for so long I came across a short clip of it on YouTube, it was enough to spark my interest.The Pursuit of Happyness is not what I expected it to be. Every time I thought I knew where the film was going I was surprised. There was no politics or racial overtones to the film, again not what I expected. The everyday struggle of a man and his young family who are just trying to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies is very gritty and realistic.But the biggest surprise for me was in Will Smiths acting. I never thought of him as a great actor. Good yes, great no. When I watch a Will Smith film I can never fully get into his characters because I never forget that I'm watching Will Smith. I have the same issue with Tom Cruise and even with Denzel Washington and Brad Pitt lately. I immediately forgot that I was watching Will Smith while watching this film, the desperateness in Chris Gardner's situation was present from the opening minutes.The story never gives way to the stereotypical rags to riches tale. The movie is inspirational not because the guy is going through all of these hard times, but because we see he is trying his best and most of the time his best is not good enough. It echoes Ira Glass and his infamous skill speech. He was already doing his best and not succeeding, only a chance encounter that Mr. Gardner acted upon changed his reality. The film is definitely inspiring for several reasons but that's just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.I'm sure this film has played in several sociology classes since 2006. The film breaks the mold in several subtle ways. Mr. Gardner is turned away from the women's shelter of which there are numerous in San Francisco to the only shelter where men are allowed. This is an underlying problem in the United States where homeless men are not treated the same as a homeless women. The other issue that was fresh to this film was that Mr. Gardner was a single father, not because his wife died as would be expected but because the child's mother essentially gave up on the family. He was a single African American father at that, this goes against so many stereotypes in American culture regarding the absent fathers in the African American community.There is so much to learn from a film like this. Never give up on a dream. Don't be lazy even when you are dead tired and have legitimate excuses to be. This was best seen in the scene with Mr. Gardner studying at night by the window. Don't judge a book by its cover. This was best seen in the interview scene when Mr. Gardner is covered in paint, and again when they are invited to the 49er's game.That's not to say the film is perfect by any means, some of the subplots take up way too much screen time and the film could have shaved at least five to ten minutes off of the run time. This is one of those films that came at the right time and place in my life for me to truly respect what was accomplished in regards to the true story and the film itself. Check it out and leave your expectations at the door.