I knew this movie would make me cry buckets of tears, so I waited until I was in the right mood. I really wanted to watch it before the Oscars. But.
Also, I had Tivo-ed the Oprah in which she had as a guest the man behind the true story in this movie. But our DVR crapped out and erased everything we had stored. Nice.
Anyway, the only reason I would actually watch this weeper of a film was that I knew it had a happy ending. That’s not a spoiler – if you’ve heard of the movie you probably knew that already.
Will Smith stars as Chris Gardner, a down-on-his-luck salesman who takes a chance and enters an internship program to become a stockbroker at Dean Witter in San Francisco. Problem is, he is the sole support for his 4-year-old son and there is no salary. Before you know it, the pair are sleeping at a shelter or on the subway at night. The kid, Smith’s own son, is adorable and heartbreaking. I sobbed through the middle of the film, even though I knew things would work out for them. It’s just so hard for me to see the little boy drop his Captain America doll, his most prized possession, in the street on the way to the bus and have to leave it behind.
I am about to look up the true story behind this movie. We had a screener copy of the film so it didn’t have any bonus footage or featurettes. I’m assuming that the story was adapted to fit the story structure of a movie, so I’ll bet there are embellishments and such. Still, I really enjoyed this one.
I liked it too and I agree, Will Smith’s son who played the little boy was adorable.
I cried the hardest the night that he had to convince his son they were hiding from the dinosaurs (I think it was dinosaurs) and they spent the night in that bathroom. So sad, but it was nice to leave feeling upbeat.