Gabriele Muccino: Happyness(2006)

[Chris Knipp]

Gabriele Muccino: The Pursuit of Happyness(2006)

Running from poverty, with the smarts to make it

Review by Chris Knipp

First question: if Muccino has moved to Hollywood, who’s going to be the mainstream film voice of Italian thirty- (or forty-) somethings now?

This is the true Horatio Alger story set in the early Eighties of a black San Francisco salesman, Chris Gardner (Will Smith). It's focused on a narrow slice of time when Gardner's wife (Thandie Newton) leaves him with their five-year-old son Christopher (Jaden Smith) and he becomes homeless while in an unpaid, highly competitive program to become a broker at Dean, Witter that he's betting can turn his life around. He and his son are pushed from apartment to cheap motel to BART restroom to Glide Memorial Church daily beds till his smarts and drive make him the one intern out of twenty hired. End titles tell us the real Gardner later started his own investment company and just sold out his limited partnership in that company for “millions.”

When the story begins and throughout most of it Gardner struggles to sell a bunch of bone density scanners he’s unwisely bought; they’re expensive, irrelevant, and hard to sell to doctors’ offices but he's got to sell them to keep afloat at all, even homeless. A running theme is how several of these machines are stolen from him under odd circumstances and he struggles to get them back. This is the part of the voiceover-narrated story he calls “running.” Christopher goes to school in Chinatown. Another part of the ever-present San Francisco atmosphere is Gardner’s success selling retirement plan investment to Pac Bell execs following his wangling a trip to a Candlestick park box to watch a ball game with a CEO, and frequent BART rides. One night father and son, who have used a station Men’s as a “cave” for the night, sleep on a moving BART train.

Emphasis is on Chris’s devotion to his son and the son’s good humor (“You’re a good papa”), Chris’s willingness to go to any lengths to succeed and never let rejection get him down. It’s simple enough stuff. Muccino’s sense of movement and Smith’s charisma and positive vibe as an actor pull us through and keep this from being dreary or mediocre; it's got to have that zing but they get the zing. Using Smith’s real son in the son role also obviously helps. There is chemistry, but the son isn’t a professional cutie either.

Also emphasized and a way this story is realistic is the importance of Chris’s brains. He’s good at numbers and always has been (as well as with people) and did well in school even though he missed college. He drills his son in basic information and gets a foot into the Dean, Witter program initially by solving the Rubik's Cube in front of a Dean, Witter boss who thinks it's impossible.

Happyness is a misspelling in Chinatown Chris objects to, not some sort of hip-hop gesture. Quite the contrary: this is about making it in the mainstream world. Love it or leave it. If this is a sellout, so be it.

This simple, upbeat movie hardly shows what Muccino or Will Smith can do. The Italian director's early films were original and mainstream in a good sense and have a wonderful momentum to them this hard-driven story doesn’t really quite need his special talents to convey, though he knows how to do it, of course. How does it feel to be famous in your own country and a freshman director in Hollywood? Another question, along with “Why?” This movie is ably done but lacks the complexity of Muccino’s mainstream, but stylistically original Italian work (he created the mainstream for his generation).

Similarly, this role shows Smith’s usual charm and charisma and we can't quite imagine the movie succeeding without him, but this isn’t the kind of rich role (Ali) or edgy one (Six Degrees of Separation) he’s capable of and too rarely tackles. Sourpusses might see this as capitalist pap. Okay; but it doesn’t lie to us any more than Smith’s character does. And he is ruthlessly honest whenever he can be: he can’t tell Dean, Witter he’s homeless – that wouldn’t look good – but he does come in for one interview in shirtsleeves and covered in paint drippings and admits he’s just been released from jail waiting for a check to clear for an unpaid parking ticket. Chris Gardner lives on the edge. If any of this is true, it’s an amazing story of determination.

It’s not often Hollywood acknowledges homelessness in US cities like this, or shows how a struggling person can slide down into it – and what a heroic effort it would take – a miracle, really – to get back out. Happyness has some tears, but it’s relatively free of sentimentality. Gardner doesn’t have time for that. He’s too busy running to stay afloat and making dozens of cold calls, selling. This is a Willy Loman who’s straight and successful; who isn’t pathetic but awe-inspiring. When he gets hired, he doesn’t jump for joy. He’s just tired and stunned. “Was this as easy as it looked?” an exec asks. “No, sir, it wasn’t,” he quietly says. There’s truth in this too. Showing that some people are exceptional and beat the odds isn’t a lie. It’s called a role model. It’s called an inspiration. This is a simple movie, but you have to be an ideologue with a somewhat mean spirit to object to it too strongly.

[mouton]

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS
Written by Steve Conrad
Directed by Gabriele Muccino


As the opening shots of THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS establish San Francisco as the setting for this tale of adversity with the Golden Gate Bridge and hordes of people rushing up and down the steep hills to get to their important jobs, I couldn’t help but begin to worry that I was about to be fed Hollywood’s take on what it means to go through hard times. This is after all a Will Smith picture. My anxiety eased up slightly though when the view dropped down from the indistinguishable faces of the swarm to a face that blended in all too well amongst the masses of determined feet. Throughout the opening credits, Italian film director, Gabriele Muccino, drew my attention away from a race I know all too well and ever so subtly forced me to look at what I am accustomed to looking away from, the homeless. And though Smith’s Chris Gardner is currently employed, he is about to face challenge after soul-depleting challenge until he too finds himself amongst the people he turns away from as hurries about his day as a unsuccessful salesman. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS is a hollowing drama that drags both its protagonist and its audience deeper into despair than either would have expected. It is a relentless assault on the sense of security and entitlement many of us have as supposed functional members of a working society and by the time I left, I knew that I had absolutely nothing to complain about.

Chris Gardner’s story would be nothing more than one man’s pursuit of the American dream if it weren’t for one very important thing. In this case, that thing is actually a very charming, young boy, Chris’ son, Christopher (played by Smith’s real-life son, Jaden). Watching Will and Jaden quibble and endure provides for some endearing screen time but their plight and performances overshadow their off-screen family ties. If Chris fails, he will not only be begging for his food but he will lose the one thing that gives him purpose. Little Christopher’s future depends on whether his father can successfully overcome his horrible misfortune to beat out nineteen other candidates in a competitive internship for thriving brokerage firm, Dean Whitter. Today, the American dream often symbolizes an unhealthy, greedy amassment of unnecessary material goods but Chris’ fight is for the bare essentials. His son deserves a stable home and regular meals. He deserves these and other rudimentary needs in order to have the opportunity to pursue his own dreams. And while I’m certain Chris wouldn’t mind a bigger piece of the proverbial pie, he knows what he needs to survive and by chasing that, he reminds the audience that the American dream should be spread more evenly. It is not a contest to win out miles ahead while the rest clamor for scraps.

Will Smith is by far the most successful black box-office star of his generation, if not of all time. He has broken barriers around the world and yet manages to find himself facing criticism for not addressing any specific racial issues in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS. However, not verbalizing the unavoidable prejudices a black man must face competing against a room full of white faces in 1981 doesn’t mean it isn’t there. If anything, Smith’s Chris exhibits his intelligence by pushing his understandable racial frustrations aside in order to appease his potential employers. He becomes the showman who gets his foot in the door by making the white folk laugh, all the while knowing he has the goods to surpass all their expectations once he’s in. In one of the film’s many moments of desperation and impending disaster, Chris finds himself sitting in his first interview at Dean Whitter, splattered in dried paint, wearing overalls and no shirt at all. The men who sit opposite him are all white and not amused. When they leer at him, they certainly aren’t just uncomfortable with his appearance; they see his black skin just as plainly. Not focusing on the obvious showcases Muccino’s subtle grace handling Hollywood and allows Chris to be the smartest man in the room. It also allows for Smith to give a performance where he appears as though he might break at any given moment while he wears the knowledge that closing his eyes for even a second is never an option.

Without confirming whether THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS actually concludes with Chris achieving the happiness he works so hard to get, I can say that it deftly humbling and certainly doesn’t allow for the viewer leaving that happy. Smith’s backwards journey towards the top speaks to anyone who has ever struggled to succeed. What it says to them is to ask themselves if they have ever truly suffered and if so, for what? Have you been fighting to make your dreams come true or fighting to beat out the next guy? More importantly, have you ever tried to be happy in exactly the spot you’re standing.

[Chris Knipp]

Wonder if you would have any response to the outspoken black critic Armond White's strong criticisms of the movie expressed in his New York Press review of it:

http://nypress.com/19/50/film/ArmondWhite.cfm

I personally did not think it was a given that he faced a lot of prejudice. But he overcame the prejudice against homeless people by hiding that fact from the Dean, Witter execs. I saw it as a race-neutral story about a black man. You could actually wonder if the real person was black--I thought. But I'm assuming he was.

I don't k now what I think about this movie as a statement about black experience or the struggle to succeed--its inspirational aspects are real, though, and as a longtime San Francisco resident with a good friend who used to be a broker at Dean, Witter (that's the spelling) myself, I liked the realistic details of the city. And Will Smith is always appealing. I don't know that he is turning out to be an actor of the caliber of Denzel Washington, Morgan Freman, Forrest Whittiker, or even Jamie Foxx. But he is always appealing. He can sell himself. This is the quality that make him good in The Pursuit of Happyness, and was the quality that made him riveting, even troubling, in Six Degrees of Separation.

[mouton]

I would have to agree with you that the film is not particularly the story of a black man but rather a man who is black. That being said, I found the prejudice to be present in the reading of the viewer. It was not spelled out but rather something you could look for if you wanted to. This was not a racial issues film but rather a human struggle story. Drawing specific attention to the racial issues would have seriously turned the film into something it wasn't.

[Chris Knipp]

Okay. We're agreed on that.

Other than that, any comment son Armond White's criticisms?

[mouton]

Hmmm ... difficult to read. I find that the issues he brings up are his own interpretations and assumptions about Smith's motivations. To call him the token black box office star stinks of disdain. The fact remains that before Smith trotted around the globe to promote his films until they became bonafide hits, there was no one achieving his level of success. He has opened doors for others to follow; I doubt very much he shut it behind him so he can remain the only one enjoying the success. I doubt also that international audiences have allowed this to happen for Smith alone. There are only so many international box office stars, regardless of skin color.

As for his theories about Smith's Gardner chasing after privilege to prove he is just as entitled to it as anyone else, I address that specifically in my review. Yes, as it turned out, Gardner ended up as a millionaire. I don't think he set his hopes that high to begin with. I felt he went after what he felt to be his fair share ... starting with a roof over his head for him and his son.

I did not feel a hip-hop vibe in this film nor did I feel a distinct avoidance of one. I did however feel in White's article a distinct discomfort with Smith and the way he is perceived, whether he is playing to the black or white market. That's the thing about representation; the groups involved are so rarely satisfied. That in itself though makes it very difficult for any individual to stand out from the group and distinguish themselves as anything but a member of a minority.

What do I know though ... I'm just a white guy. ;)

Hod did you feel?

[Chris Knipp]

mouton, I just wanted to get you to take notice of Armond White. Since he usually takes the contrary opinion, I find him stimulating, and he does write as a black person. The role of major African American movie stars in Hollywood is a topic too big for me to tackle. I enjoyed the movie, but was disappointed that Will Smith once again didn't do something up to what he might be capable of. The logic behind a movie like this is very simple. It's Rocky for BUPPIES. I don't find it offensive. But it makes some sense to be angry at a film that sells black people into buying into a capiatlist fantasy when there are such disparities of income in the USA and when black men are at the low end of the totem pole, and a lot of them are in prison.

I found that I agreed with White on Dreamgirls, though once again I would not express myself so angrily and I'm not black. I also found that one or two other writers at least were of the same opinion about the film.

[mouton]

I have not read his article on DREAMGIRLS. I am currently working on my review for that film and I will be discussing race as well. Impossible to avoid I feel ... and definitely tackled the issue more directly that HAPPYNESS did. Mind you, it is a musical and it focused more on entertaining than on criticizing society.

[Chris Knipp]

You could say that any American movie whose main characters are black is "tackling" the subject of "race," but obviously this is hardly perceptible in Happyness, but central to Dreamgirls, though one major point made by Armond White, whose review I would urge you to read, is that the Dreamgirls version of Motown history -- which is a musical designed and executed by white people for the entertainment of a predominantly white Broadway audience in the early Eighties -- is unfair to African American cultural history. The writer for the website Cinematical writes:
White's piece on Dreamgirls is a beaut. He accuses it of "typecasting black behavior into shrillness and frivolity." He cites the parody of the Dreamgirls theater-quaker "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" in the movie Camp (and I'm embarassed here because I saw that minor indie movie, and I didn't remember the song was in it). Speaking of camp, he says that Dreamgirls reduces the phenomenal rise of the black sound in the 1960s as mere camp. In this he is right on the money again -- how can one dismiss a band as important as the Supremes as mere dress-up? White writes "What Dreamgirls gets wrong -- everything from the music to the history to the misunderstood cultural iconography -- is more damaging than any entertainment it offers." And lastly he wraps up by suggesting a rental of the film Sparkle in Dreamgirls' place. Have a look at this review; White goes where white critics fear to tread... Do yourself a favor: read Armond White's review (http://nypress.com/19/51/film/ArmondWhite2.cfm) of Dreamgirls. It puts your somewhat thoughtless rave in perspective. Even if you stand by your views, and why shouldn't you?--I think it's a good idea when you've raved about something to consider the views of well informed writers who think it's a piece of crap