This film shows us “Te American Deam” very well through out the movie as we pay our attention to middle class family showing us their way of life and habits.
At the start of the film I noticed the main character “Chris Gardner” (played by Will Smith) took his job very seriously as the family’s income was pretty low along with his wife “Linda” (played by Thandie Newton) working shifts at a launderette all day and night. We see Chris Gardner’s determination when he try’s desperately to sell his “Bone x-ray scanners” to different medical companies.
There is a scene where we get to watch the Gardner family eat their dinner and relax a little from a hard days work when I noticed after they had all finished his wife Linda took the glass’ and purred the left over squash back into a main bottle what they would store it. This suggested and showed to me that the family had little money and tried to save and reuse anything they could with in reason. When we see Chris travailing to his next sale opportunity he complements a successful looking business man who is parking up his car. Chris is amazed at how nice and flash the car looked along with the business man who looked as if he was happier than life. He asks the worker how he got to be so successful and what his job is. He says “im a stock broker” as he walks up into this grand looking office building. Chris’ body language shows us that he has become very interested in that kind of life style and tells us that he is determined to get there. This alone shows us that he is unhappy with his current job and wants to make a big career move.
The scene where it is his sons birthday quite depressing for me to watch because it gives me the impression that in my lifestyle I take a lot for granted. This is because in the scene his son “Christopher” (played by Jaden Smith) only has one thing on his mind that he wants and that is a basketball. The face he only receives this one gift from both working parents shows us how grateful he is for this because his parents pay cheques go strait to rent and house hold bills. His body language and expression shows us how happy and excited he is when he gets the basketball by the laughter and look on his face.
This made me feel like a take a lot of things for granted like I have my I-pod and computer and yet I still want new things and they way he is so pleased at getting his basketball made me think how expensive luxuries are being given and bought and used in out everyday lives.
There is a scene where Chris jumps into a cab with the boss of a stock exchange business
To discuss how he can get a chance to get an interview. This shows us how much he has his mind set out on bettering his life plus the fact that he chose to get into the cab instead of continuing his journey to a potential sale customer what could mean either loosing that months rent or gaining it.
When the boss struggles to do his rubix cube Chris offers to lend him a hand and help him out and insists that he can complete it. The boss doesn’t believe him and so he starts to solve it along the journey. Just as he arrives at his location Chris solves it and hands it to the boss, he leaves imprested. This seems to me like he has got his foot in the door and had made him self stand out from the job hunters. The choice of getting into the cab and missing his opponent has managed to gain little respect.
At one point in the film Chris says “happiness is only something you can pursue” , I love this saying because it is so true. You can work hard for anything you want and finally after a bit of time you can possibly achieve your goal and gain the thing you want but when you do there is always something else that you want and you think will make you happy, its just a vicious circle, so really you are only happy for a short amount of time and then you set out to get the next thing you think will make you happy.
After Chris passes the first interview he then rejects the call that is inviting him back to the office for a further interview when he gets told there is no money involved over the 3 month course. This brings him back down to reality just as he thought things were on the up and up. He rejects it for the basic principle of needing to provide for him and his son.
I also am really fond of the quote “ you got a dream?…hold onto it, you want something…go get it” this is because I find them words so true. I think In this case (The American Dream) it is referring to. Its saying what ever dream you might have, you are the only one in control who is able to make it come true. If you take all the right steps in the direction of your dream then there is no reason why it cant happen.
Through out the film Chris loses his scanner a few times and when he chases after it to get it back its like him chasing his dream and showing how determined he is to better himself and get his foot higher on the ladder.
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