the pursuit of happyness

i’m somewhat embarrassed to say that i liked this. i kept waiting for the schmaltziness to make me cringe, but it never happened. maybe i have high schmaltziness tolerance tonight, maybe it’s just a good movie. anyway, i realized only when i saw the special features that will smith chose an italian director to do pursuit. the guy barely spoke english at the time of the shooting. the funniest parts of the whole dvd are the ones in which muccino communicates with smith using the gesticulations for which italians are famous around the world while making some incomprehensible but frenetic sounds with his mouth. god, it must have been dreadful for him. i get a headache just thinking about it, because i have of course been there. with hindsight, i can see the italian style. unless we try to make american audiences go gaga, we italians are a surprisingly unemotional people who find wearing positive feelings on our sleeves mortifying (we are just fine with negative feelings). we like american movies, but wouldn’t imagine for a second that people might actually talk to each other like that in real life.

some nice shots of san francisco, no gratuitous nastiness (it’s life that’s getting gardner in the teeth, no people’s cussedness), no gratuitous miracles (no one shows up in the nick of time to rescue him), great restraint in showing gardner’s slow but determined climb into solvency, and fantastic chemistry between smith and his son. fast and effective editing, good pace. i enjoyed myself.