In 1981, San Francisco salesman Chris Gardner invests his entire life savings in portable bone-density scanners, which he demonstrates to doctors and pitches as a handy improvement over standard X-rays. The scanners play a vital role in Chris's life. While he can sell most of them, the time lag between the sales and his growing financial demands enrages his wife, Linda, who works as a hotel maid. The economic instability increasingly erodes their marriage, despite caring for Christopher Jr., their soon-to-be five-year-old son.
While out on a trip to sell one of his last scanners, Chris meets Jay Twistle, a lead manager and partner for Dean Witter Reynolds and impresses him by solving a Rubik's Cube during a taxi ride. After Jay leaves, Chris skips out on paying the fare as he lacks the money, causing the driver to angrily chase him into a BART station. Chris successfully escapes by boarding a train, but loses one of his scanners in the process. However, Chris' new relationship with Jay earns him the chance to become an intern stockbroker.
The day before the interview, Chris paints his apartment for free after his landlord begrudgingly lets him do so to postpone eviction for late rent. However, two policemen arrive to arrest Chris for multiple unpaid parking tickets. Chris is forced to spend the night in jail until the check clears the next morning, complicating his schedule for his interview. He narrowly arrives at Dean Witter's office on time, albeit still in shabby, paint-splattered clothes. Despite his appearance, Chris still impresses the interviewers and lands a six-month unpaid internship. He is among 20 interns competing for a paid position as a stockbroker.
Chris' unpaid internship does not please Linda, who leaves for New York since she might get a job at her sister's boyfriend's new restaurant. After Chris tells Linda she is incapable of being a single parent, she leaves Christopher in Chris' care. However, Chris is further set back when his already diminished bank account is garnished by the IRS for unpaid income taxes, and Chris and Christopher are evicted.
With only $21.33 in his bank account, Chris and Christopher are left homeless and desperate; Chris is able to get a motel room, but the locks are then changed when he is unable to pay on time. They are forced at one point to stay in a restroom at a BART station. Other days, the two spend nights at a homeless shelter, in BART, or, if Chris manages to procure sufficient cash, at a hotel. Later, he finds the bone scanner that he lost in the BART station earlier. However, Chris found it damaged, yet he still manages to repair it by selling his own blood for money availability and after that sells it to a physician, thus completing all sales of his scanners.
Disadvantaged by his limited work hours and knowing that maximizing his client contacts and profits is the only way to earn the broker position, Chris develops several ways to make sales calls more efficiently, including reaching out to potential high-value customers in person, a violation of firm protocol. One sympathetic prospect, Walter Ribbon, a top-level pension fund manager, even takes Chris and Christopher to a San Francisco 49ers game, where Chris meets some of Mr. Ribbon's friends, who are also potential clients. Regardless of his challenges, Chris never reveals his lowly circumstances to his colleagues, even going so far as to lend one of his supervisors, Mr. Frohm, $5 in his wallet for cab fare. Chris also studies for and aces the stockbroker license exam although he doubts that he did well.
As Chris concludes his last day of internship, he is summoned to a meeting with the partners. Mr. Frohm lets Chris know that he has won the coveted full-time position and reimburses Chris for the previous cab ride. Fighting back tears, he shakes hands with the partners, then rushes to Christopher's daycare to hug him. Sometime later, the two walk down a street joking with each other.
An epilogue reveals that Chris went on to form his own multimillion-dollar brokerage firm in 1987 and sold a minority stake in it in a multi-million-dollar deal in 2006.
Chris Gardner realized his story had Hollywood potential after an overwhelming national response to an interview he did with 20/20 in January 2003. Gardner published his autobiography on May 23, 2006, and later became an associate producer for the film.
In order to create dramatic impact, the film artistically altered Gardner's life story by compressing several years' worth of events into a shorter period of time. Gardner makes a tiny cameo at the end of the film, walking past the fictional version of himself.
Reception
The Pursuit of Happyness received a generally positive response from critics, with Will Smith receiving widespread acclaim for his performance. Film review site Rotten Tomatoes calculated a 67% overall approval based on 177 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Will Smith's heartfelt performance elevates The Pursuit of Happyness above mere melodrama." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Chris Gardner: [about the spelling mistakes in the graffiti of a building] It's not "H-A-P-P-Y-N-E-S-S" Happiness is spelled with an "I" instead of a "Y"
