Lawyer Leffler Review of "Pursuit of Happyness"

The Pursuit of Happyness:

Life is full of temptations to cut corners. Maybe a nip and tuck hereand there on the tax return. Or pocketing the overpayment of change froma purchase rather than setting the record straight. Depending on thenature of the corner to be cut and the nature of the person cutting it,the temptation can run from manageable to overwhelming. The moredesparate the person, the more they will see the temptation asoverwhelming. But the poet Robert Browning said: "Why comes temptation,but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And sobe pedastled in triumph."The Pursuit of Happyness, based on a true story, concerns a man who,against all odds, mastered those temptations and found his pedastle oftriumph. Will Smith plays a hard working entrepreneur who hits hardtimes when his wife gets tired of living on the financial edge. Sheleaves him with their 5 year old son (played by Smith's actual child)and Smith faces even higher hurdles. He loses his home and the sale ofhis medical devices that he plowed all of his money into goes stale. He happens to meet a stock broker who suggests that Smith apply for theprogram run by his brokerage for new salesmen. He gets into the program(which only offers one of the many participants a position with the firmupon completion) while juggling the demands of a single father who hasthe added burden of being homeless and needing to find a place to keephimself and his son each night.There are numerous chances for him to cut corners. Chances that most ofus probably would have seized since the damage to others would have beennegligible. But the message of this uplifing movie is that doing thingsthe right and honest way pays dividends despite how hopeless thesituation may appear at the time.