Pursuit of Happyness

I have been looking forward to this movie for a long time, and I finally got to see it. Wednesday movie night returned last night.

First off, this movie is depressing. Gut wrenching depressing. Every single one of us has had days where our bills are due and there is nothing we can do to pay them. Every one of us knows what it's like to be down to our last few dollars. Watching these two go through it for months was just awful. Not in the watching-Schindlers-List way, because obviously it's not that kind of awful. But this represented something that could pretty easily happen to any one of us. That made it hard to watch.

The movie itself wasn't amazing. It was good. It was well put together, well written, and well directed. But the big strength was the acting. I've never seen Will Smith this raw. He was so natural. Having his son play his son was a brilliant choice. They were so connected and already had the father son thing down so beautifully that it read really well on the screen.

I'm placing my bets that Will Smith not only gets nominated for this part, but has a good chance of winning. It's understated, but that's what's so great about it.