影评一
If you've ever been poor, this movie may be hard to watch. It depicts poverty in America in gut wrenchingly accurate ways. I've been as poor as Chris Gardner, and, like him, I've been poor among very rich people in the Bay Area while trying to work my way up.
Chris Gardner is a loving father and failing businessman. He is chosen for a competitive internship at Dean Witter, a stock brokerage. The internship, which offers Chris a very long shot at a better life, doesn't pay any salary. Chris has to live without a salary for six months while risking just about everything for that long shot gamble.
Chris is really smart. He can solve a Rubrik's cube in minutes. But, he's poor. Poverty, like an octopus, keeps trying to suck him down to the bottom, and make him stay there.
His car is towed. His wife walks out on him, leaving him with a five year old son. He is arrested for unpaid traffic tickets. He becomes homeless. He has to rely on a homeless shelter.
All this while, he must appear for work in the morning in a suit and tie, and be ready to charm some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the Bay Area. These people take wealth so much for granted that two of them stiff him for cab fare.
Having lived through similar experiences, I cringed throughout this movie. My stomach hurt. I winced. I cried. I hugged my knees to my chest.
The movie is very accurate, but painful to watch. I hope a lot of rich people, who think that they understand poverty, see it.
This movie will be politically controversial. First of all, it doesn't touch the race issue with a ten foot pole. For example, when Chris appears to stiff a taxi driver for fare (it was really the rich white guy who failed to pay), the taxi driver never uses the "n" word. In real life, I think he probably would have.
Is the movie afraid to talk about race, or does it not want to? I don't know, but I know that some will protest the movie's not shoving race in the movie goer's face. I'm not one of those people. The movie's approach to race -- treating it as almost incidental -- worked for me. As a poor white person, I can tell you that poor white people face the same obstacles Chris did.
Second, does the movie sell the message that if you work hard, you will succeed, no matter what, and does that message tell the truth about success in America? I think that the movie is open to interpretation. Some will see it as an indictment of poverty in America. The scene of carefree rich people driving past the line to get into a homeless shelter is pretty devastating. Other people will become angry because they believe that the movie's depiction of hard work leading to rewards, in some cases, is too facile. I disagree, but that's what you'll hear.
Third, is this movie meant to chastise black men who abandon their children? Chris is a role model exactly because he moves heaven and earth to be a good father to his son. This will be debated back and forth.
The movie has a big philosophical statement to make, that has been lost on many reviewers, for example, Richard Schickel in TIME.
Chris is shown running throughout the movie. Remember the title of the movie: "The PURSUIT of Happiness." Chris places emphasis on "pursuit." Jefferson, when he penned the Declaration of Independence, did not promise Americans happiness, but only the right to pursue it. Chris says, at one point in the movie, paraphrase, "I am happy right now. It is a fleeting moment." We experience happiness in eyeblinks. The rest of the time we, like Chris, are chasing after it.
影评二
In preparation for writing this comment, which I am compelled to write for reasons which will become clear, I read a fair few of the major critics to see, if on this occasion, they had seen and felt what I had.
James Bernadelli suggests this film should be known as the "Pursuit of Richness"; another column I have read suggests that the money-will-solve-your-problems resolution is depressing and not the message Hollywood (or art in general) should be trying to put across.
I ask myself when the last occasion might have been that any of these critics genuinely had to :spoiler: run, under painful, embarrassing duress, from a cab - because they didn't have the money; or when the forces of life seemed to conspire against them so unfairly that they broke down in tears. Spoiler: when your wealthy boss, who you CANNOT disappoint, asks you to borrow the last five dollars in your wallet, and you know that that money is all you have in the world - to feed your family, to pay your gas.
You go through times in life when you feel that things couldn't possibly get worse - and then they do - and then they do again. Sometimes, (like Chris and son at the beach towards the end of the film) you just want to get away from it all, other times you cry. Sometimes, and this is rare, you laugh - because if you don't you'll cry. You know that if you let it all become too much, you will sink to the bottom of the sea.
Chris Gardner (not the real one perhaps, but the one in this movie) is my personal hero; my shining example; my inspiration - the guy that never allows himself to sink - even when he can feel his shoelaces trailing on the seabed.
I realised as I was watching this film that I was watching another me, so I never once stopped rooting for Chris. When he :spoiler: fixes the scanner in the shelter, I felt like I had fixed it.
I'm still working on getting the job that earns me enough to have a less painful life - when Chris finally achieves it, I want it for him so badly that I feel it in the very fibre of my being.
I suppose that it doesn't matter that much that Chris wants to succeed as much for his son as for himself. In a way, the fact that Chris has a son makes this movie emotionally frightening and if (and only if) our basest fears are being toyed with by the director, it is only in exactly the same way that we sometimes look up in to the sky and say - like Jim Carrey in "Bruce Almighty" - is there anything else you could possibly do to me today? In my life, God doesn't appear and explain why he keeps toying with me. The truest belief is in oneself and one must never lose it.
I adore this movie and I couldn't be more grateful for its existence. It comes at a time when I need it most. Its message: Keep going - never, ever give up.
And so I come back to those reviewers. Money certainly doesn't mean happiness in this existence, but no money, in this cruel capitalist world, can cost you your life. Do not be judgmental of those who want more, it might just be enough to pay for their son to eat, to keep a roof over his head, to keep their dignity. This film is not about rags-to-riches as some reviewers have said. It's not about the American dream either. It is about dignity and integrity and how money (or lack thereof) could easily strip you of both.
Chris Gardner never loses either and for this, he is an inspiration to us all.
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