Not everything gets better with change. I know I may sound like a stick in the mud, but I love DVDs! I just learned that Netflix has officially stopped distributing them. The company business model is 100% streaming. Now, I do see the business perspective of this. Nothing to handle, nothing to return damaged, much more cost effective, plus hardly anyone has a DVD player anymore. I have a little secret. If I have a DVD in my hand, I watch the film and then I watch the rest of the story. I watch all the Bonus cuts after the movie. The “Special Features,” the Director’s explanation of the film, literally frame by frame, and more. I suppose the world may have to pry my DVDs out of my hands but I’m sure the time will come.
The Pursuit of Happiness is the inspiring true-life story of Chris Gardner. Chris, played brilliantly by Will Smith, is a man struggling to make ends meet in the 1980s in San Francisco. One day, by chance and perseverance, Chris ends up in a cab with a stockbroker. Trying to convince the man to take a chance on him during a short cab ride, the man is distracted by a Rubik’s Cube he is trying to solve and Chris challenges him by saying if he can do it by the time he gets to his destination will he talk to him again. The man “knowing” Chris won’t be able to accomplish something even he can’t do, agrees. This chance encounter changes Chris and his son’s life.
Chris talks his way into a six-month internship at a highly competitive stockbrokerage firm, just to find out that the six months is unpaid with long hours. His wife buckles under the pressure and walks out. Chris and his son soon find themselves homeless. They spend their nights sleeping in shelters, buses, and Bart station restrooms. They even spend many nights at the iconic Glide Memorial Church (with cameos of Reverend Cecil Williams). Through it all, the relationship between father and son is strengthened, sweetened, and even in the middle of dire circumstances, full of love and trust.
Chris Gardner wanted a better life for himself but even more so, for his son. He was willing to do whatever it took for as long as it took. At one point in the movie he tells his son, “Don’t ever let anyone tell you, you can’t do something, not even me.”
It seems like hope is in short supply today. I’m not sure exactly why. I do know that we still live in the best country in the world, the United States of America. There are still people, everyday who rise above their poverty to beat the odds, like Chris Gardner. Am I saying it’s easy? Absolutely not! When you look at someone else, you may automatically assume that what they have or what they have accomplished was easy. There is one thing I have learned in life and that is, everyone has a story to tell; everyone has something they had to rise above. They may have stopped talking about it as they managed to change their circumstances, but it doesn’t mean they have never struggled. A friend of mine used to say, “We all put our pants on the same way, one leg at a time.” Next time you’re tempted to think someone had it better than you, think again. You might even want to get to know them. Hear their story. With an open heart and an open mind, you might be surprised.
There is a happy ending to The Pursuit of Happyness. Since I had the DVD, I was able to see an interview with the real Chris Gardner and Will Smith. And you may have guessed, Chris became a very successful stockbroker, eventually starting his own brokerage. Years later, he sold a part of his company for a very large amount of money and retired. He then met Nelson Mandela, starting yet another passionate and impactful phase of his life.
At the end of the movie, Chris (Will Smith) and his son, Christopher (Jaden Smith, Will’s actual son) can be seen walking down a street in San Francisco just talking back and forth. Christopher is telling his father yet another silly joke and walking by is a well-dressed businessman—the real Wall Street legend, Chris Gardner.