The Pursuit of Happiness is the new emotional drama sweeping the box office. Starring Will Smith and his son Jaden, the two actors play a father-son duo who undergo trying times in San Francisco. The story, based on real- life, starts with Will Smith’s character, Chris Gardner, trying to sell bone density scanners. Gardner has little luck though, and after having invested his life savings in the business, he soon finds himself short of money, but not short of bills.
Tragedy for Gardner doesn’t stop there. His wife leaves him, he’s arrested for outstanding parking tickets, and eventually he is evicted from his home. All of these trials seem to land at Gardner’s doorstep right as he takes on a non-paying internship at a stock brokerage company. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime for Gardner – if he can prove himself among the 20 other competing interns.
It seems like a slippery slope for Gardner, one thing after another seems to go wrong. The audience wonders if anything else could possibly go wrong, and if things will ever change before the credits roll. No matter what Gardner does, things just get worse. Gardner seems like a good guy too, taking care of his son and doing everything he can to provide a better life growing up then he had. So why doesn’t any of it seem to work?
I have to admit going in I was biased. I’ve been a long-time fan of Will Smith, collecting every album he’s made (including the ones with DJ Jazzy Jeff!) and I own almost every movie he’s appeared in (almost, because Six Degrees of Separation just isn’t my cup of tea). I was pretty sure I would like his latest role, especially since it included his son. However, not even my highest of expectation would prepare me for how emotionally draining this movie was! The night before its release David Letterman while interviewing with Will Smith said that watching it he felt, “…like his stomach was pulled up through his nose.” While not as poetic as Smith would have liked, Letterman did convey how absolutely heartbreaking this story is.
Many will recognize this story, though. The righteous man who does everything the way he should, only to find everything taken away from him in the blink of an eye. At what point does he man give up? Can he redeem himself? The eyes of faith have seen this story far too many times to count. Thankfully, the eyes of faith also recognize that Gardner’s repeated failures are a simple sign of how much he is in the hands of God.
Even when Gardner seems to do everything right, someone steals his expensive bone-density machine. Or if he’s lucky enough to get it back, it just so happens to be broken. When push comes to shove, Gardner finds himself sitting in a church pew, holding his son with nothing left in the world but the clothes on his back, a broken bone density machine and a spare suit. Even then he is no fool, realizing those things might not be around much longer either!
Faith doesn’t give up simply because the world has. The world would have us do that, and forsake everything simply to stoop to its level. Faith overcomes the world’s messages, and knows that even when all seems to go awry, the Lord is in control. If the Lord so desires that tomorrow Chris Gardner were to become a multi-millionaire stock broker, He’d put that into play! The most we can do is live with what the Lord deals us. Gardner does just that, and his pursuit of happiness isn’t dictated by the goods he accumulates, but by the fact that he has one more day to give it another shot. Anything can happen in a day, and if the Lord wants to turn the table – He’s going to do it!
The eyes of faith know the story in The Pursuit of Happiness all too well. Bad things happens with no apparent rhyme or reason. The world will find this movie absolutely astonishing and will struggle to understand how or why a man, all alone in the world, would go on one more day to see what might be in store for him. That’s troubling to the world! The eyes of faith, though, realize this is just another day lived in the Gospel of Jesus Christ – where the Lord is in control.
All in all, The Pursuit of Happiness makes for a good movie, and probably the best $7.00 I spent this week. You will feel your emotions tugged on, but you won’t be surprised by the story. Aside from that, it’s Will Smith – so you just have to go. 😉
Stan Lemon is the beloved webmaster of the Higher Things Website. He and his wife, Deaconess Sara Lemon, live in marital bliss in the Internet Services Bunker in Cabot, PA. He also owns every Will Smith movie and album except one.
