The Pursuit of Happyness Reviews

The Pursuit of Happyness is a very Hollywood film, which could be good or bad depending on your point of view. It tries very hard to be profound and inspirational, but ultimately it's not up to the task.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10

Counterfeit emotion and submerged racism

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Sap, sentiment, and hokey plot devices bog down an otherwise down to earth story.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Smith turns in a career-capping performance, and director Gabriele Muccino ingeniously turns the material inward, cautioning us all to be grateful for what we have, for we're closer to the edge than we think.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Will Smith is getting all the awards buzz, but it's his real-life son, Jaden, who transcends all expectations in Happyness.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Even the glossiest of surfaces can't extinguish the genuine emotions running beneath them here.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

Few films so convincingly portray the titanic struggle that some people face day in and day out just to survive.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10

This is Will Smith's movie from start to finish and he carries it wonderfully.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

[A] calculatedly emotional, sterilizingly cleancut drama.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Hokey title, but sometimes movie is good.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

In an effort to make a crowd-pleasing film, the horrors that Gardner must have experienced on the streets feel glossed over by the Hollywood machine.

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The American Dream as white, rich and all male.

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Will Smith gives the performance of his career in a movie for which phrases like "heart-warming" and "life-affirming" were made.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Sem jamais tratar o papel como uma simples oportunidade de mostrar seu alcance dramático, Will Smith comove justamente por demonstrar o esforço de seu personagem para se conter em momentos de grande emoção.

| Original Score: 4/5

The real story of Chris Gardner's life is indeed inspirational. The movie version wants to be inspirational as well, but never quite gets there.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

You may come out rebuking yourself for your laziness or your choices or your fatalism or your fears, but you will come out glad you saw this movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5

We may wonder if happiness can be bought this way, and whether the film being sold to us isn't a slightly suspect package, but Smith, sublime and moving, sells it regardless.

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Relentlessly grim but in a phony, Hollywood kinda way.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Bonding convincingly (as you might expect) with his own son on screen, Smith delivers his most compelling performance since Ali.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Deserves kudos for avoiding saccharine sentiment, but its relentless emphasis on money as the cure for all ills is depressing. They might as well have called it The Pursuit of Richyness.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5