The Pursuit of Happyness Blu-ray: Review By Brian

In The Pursuit of Happyness Will Smith plays Chris Gardner, a father trying to keep his family together in San Francisco. Trying to sell medical supplies isn't paying the bills and his girlfriend Linda (Thandie Newton) is getting tired of having to work so much. Rent is due, bills are mounting and finally she leaves. Chris eventually gets a position at Dean Witter Reynolds but the problem is that it is an internship and doesn't pay anything. Amidst this he is almost put in jail for failing to pay his taxes, he and his son are evicted from their hotel, and it just doesn't seem like Chris Gardner can catch a break. However, he keeps trying and that is his saving grace.

He figures out how to sell his medical supplies for bargain basement prices. He manages to impress the folks at Dean Witter. He keeps himself and his son together and in the end he triumphs just like the American Dream says we all can. While The Pursuit of Happyness is predictable, it takes pretty much the entire movie before Chris Gardner gets what he deserves. At a time in our history when the economy is starting to seem shaky, we have a war that appears to be endless, and confusion reigns over us every day someone like Chris Gardner shows us the true value of believing in yourself.

Making PursuitFather and Son: On Screen and Off

The Making Pursuit: An Italian Take on the American Dream featurette shows us why Will Smith and the other producers on this film wanted to go with Italian director Gabriele Muccino. Apparently Will Smith saw some of his films and felt like he could bring something different to this movie. Gabriele really clinched the job when he told Will Smith that Americans don't see the American Dream like people from other countries do. This featurette discusses how the director and star worked together, their styles, and the fact that Muccino didn't speak a lot of English before he embarked on this project.

Father and Son: On Screen and Off

This featurette looks at how Will Smith worked with his son Jaden. They talk about how they looked for other children to play this role, and how Jaden had a quality about him that made him right for the part. A lot of this seems like hubris. Why can't Will Smith simply say that it was easier to cast his son, he had an interest in acting, and it made it easier to look after him on the set then to pay another nanny? Something like that instead of giving us a paint by numbers answer.

The Man Behind the Movie

During a tribute to Will Smith on his birthday the real Chris Gardner showed up on the set. He and Will say good things about one another in front of a rapt audience of people. Then Chris Gardner talks about the movie, how painful it was to get back into this time in his life when he wrote the story, and the producers on the film discuss how involved Chris Gardner was with the actual production. I liked this because it was nice to see the person behind this story. To think about what he did and what he was able to accomplish, one might think it would take someone with superhuman powers. What is so impressive is that you see Chris Gardner and you realize he is simply a normal man.

Inside the Rubik's Cube

Commentary Track

Director Gabriele Muccino opens up this commentary track by apologizing for having such a thick accent. He then goes on to discuss how he got involved in this movie, how he re-shot the big scene where Chris meets that stockbroker with the nice car because he wanted it to be more powerful (it being the thing that makes Gardner go into Dean Witter Reynolds in the first place), and Muccino also points out what is real in the movie and what are sets. This track is fairly by the book as he also explains how certain scenes in the movie were captured. This isn't the best commentary track I have ever heard, but if you liked this movie it is certainly worth a listen.

1080p and a 2.40:1 aspect ratio. It doesn't get better.

I honestly cannot say enough about the next generation of home entertainment media. This stuff looks absolutely amazing. I mean, honestly, I can see why, even though box office ticket sales are up, the overall grand scheme of the theater going experience is rapidly dissipating. With an extremely short theater-to-home video turnaround, and the resolution of these Blu-ray discs being so high, if you have the right equipment, and a full-resolution 1080p viewing situation, these newly formatted movies are going to present themselves better than some old rickety theater experience could provide, unless of course you're lucky enough to watch all your movies in a theater with digital projection.

All my babbling aside, my point is, more and more I am feeling better about screening certain films for the first time right at home in hi-def, and The Pursuit of Happyness is no exception to the rule. I'm am ecstatic over Blu-ray!

English PCM 5.1 uncompressed. English and French Dolby Digital 5.1. Subtitles in English, English SDH (Closed Captioned), French, and Spanish. Not as if audio was ever an issue before the bigger format medium arrived (i.e. Blu-ray and HDDVD), but the PCM 5.1 uncompressed audio really does compliment a picture far more worth it's weight. The audio is perfect, and as I said above I don't think experiencing this film in theaters for the first time I would have benefitted as much as watching this one at home on Blu-ray. Great, great experience.

As I've said before, I'm not too into Blu-ray packaging at all. The big blue amaray case doesn't do the film justice, and absolutely takes away from it's original poster art which adorns the covers of these discs. That said, hopefully once the format war is over we'll reissues of all these launch titles in cases worthy of a true film collection...

It is easy deride this movie because it seems very predictable. We all know that in the end Chris Gardner is going to get the job. However, it's seeing what he was to go through that really drives the point of this story home. The best way to describe it is having your back against the wall. I have gone a day, or even a few days, where it seemed like something stressful in my life wasn't ever going to end. Then eventually it subsides and everything ends up working out. However, Chris Gardner's life was backed against the wall. This guy had bad luck it seemed from the opening frames of this movie, yet he never lost faith or seem to take it out on his family. Granted this is only a movie and we are only being showed so much, I still found it inspiring to see this person face each and every day short on cash but long on belief and determination.

As I have mentioned, The Pursuit of Happyness plays exactly how you think it might. It is an Academy Award-styled movie and that explains why Will Smith was nominated for Best Actor. However, there is a richness to this story that really makes one admire the intestinal fortitude of someone like Chris Gardner.