Long Way To Happy

We all have our quirks. I tend to have more than the average person out there. One of them manifests itself in Jan-Feb of every year, also known as Oscar season, when I try catch as many Oscar nominated movies as possible. Call it what you want - getting caught up in the hype, attempting to appear all culturally aware and sophisticated, desperately seeking a balance to my decidedly more trashy taste in music - I do make an effort to watch as many of these movies as possible.

And so last night, I convinced the samazozi sistas to watch The Pursuit Of Happyness. Partly because it received a Best Actor nomination for Will Smith, and partly because I knew it was set in San Francisco. The movie is based on the true story of Chris Gardner, a brilliant African American struggling to support his family while pursuing an extremely competitive internship at Dean Witter(now part of Morgan Stanley) in the hope of becoming a stockbroker.

The film is set in 1981. America is on the verge of recession. Reagan admits that the economy is in bad shape on national television. The budget deficit is at an all-time high. This dire situation is reflected in the astounding number of homeless people in San Francisco who queue up every evening for limited spaces in the various shelters. Chris eventually finds himself in this queue with his young son(who really is Will Smith's little boy).

The movie was equal parts inspiring and depressing. While I've never been one for a bulging welfare state, seeing the scores of homeless people queueing up for that most basic of necessities - a roof over their heads - was heartbreaking. Not everyone has the intelligence and luck of Chris Gardner, what happens to those people?

Another theme of the movie was that of parental responsibility. While his wife decided to leave her family behind for a job in New York - and I do understand and sympathise with that decision - Chris tried to provide for his son as best he could. Even if it meant cooking up a story about travelling back in time and finding refuge from the dinosaurs in a cave, just to alleviate the discomfort of having to spend the night in a public toilet.

On a side note, I loved the racial diversity of the movie. A black man taking his son to daycare in Chinatown, then rushing off to work in an environment dominated by whites. Or the scene where they were playing basketball on the roof of a building, with the Taiwanese flags fluttering in the background along with a solitary Stars and Stripes. Brought back many fond memories of San Francisco.

So maybe, just maybe, the reason I try to catch all those movies that have been nominated is because they're actually really good! And that's about it really. Can't wait for the Oscars tomorrow!