Nothing mean about this American Dream

FILM REVIEW

The Pursuit of Happyness

A homeless man who wants to be a stockbroker: Those are the two extremes of the American dream as expressed in The Pursuit of Happyness, a movie about money. Not that money isn't important, but this film could be used as a motivational video at Dean Witter, the brokerage that stands in this redemptive drama for all that is good and pure about America.

The Pursuit of Happyness tells the story of a working-class man named Chris Gardner (Will Smith) who in San Francisco in 1981, chased his goal -- as represented by a red convertible at the beginning of the movie -- and found, in that pursuit, enough money to buy many red convertibles. The fact that it is based on a true story hardly seems to matter in a rags-to-riches tale of this type, in which doggedness, resourcefulness and loyal fatherhood are seen mostly as qualities that can help you move customers from one retirement plan to another, thus making lots of profit for the brokerage, thus guaranteeing your own future.

The film starts with Chris making the rounds by lugging an ungainly, sewing-machine-sized box that turns out to be a portable bone-density scanner. He bought dozens of these medical devices with which to make his fortune, only to find that they are twice as expensive as a conventional X-ray machine.

Meanwhile, at home, Linda (Thandie Newton), Chris's wife, is a nurse who works double-shifts and is tired of the unpaid bills and long hours and decides to bail out a third of the way into the movie.

That leaves Chris with his son, little Chris (Jaden Smith, Will Smith's real-life son). He's enrolled in a daycare centre so bad that it has part of the American Constitution -- the part about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- misspelled on its wall. Then Chris sees a stockbroker in the red car, who tells him that you just have to be good with numbers and with people, and you can be a stockbroker too.

The second half of The Pursuit of Happyness follows Chris as he tries to get a coveted spot as an unpaid intern at Dean Witter. He does this while rushing home to pick up his son, try to sell bone scanners to make ends meet, move to increasingly grubbier quarters and still arrive at the office the next morning in shirt and tie.

When he's not running, Smith turns on his considerable charm to persuade us that he could do this. In fact, one of the problems with the film is that he's too charming: The warm father has no character flaws except an empty wallet, and the film has no villains, except bad luck. By the end, though, you're ready to buy anything Smith is selling. Rating 2 ?