Chris Gardner, the man whose rags to riches story inspired Will Smith’s box office hit The pursuit of happiness, went from living homeless to becoming a multimillionaire.
The film is roughly based on real events during one year of his life, when he was 28 years old. Chris Gardner had a difficult childhood, after growing-up in a household with a loving mother who was emotionally and physically abused by his alcoholic step-father.
Gardner ended up in foster care, after his mother (who worked multiple jobs to support the family) was sent to jail for committing welfare fraud.
The movie is set during his late twenties, after Gardner was accepted on a training program at a prestigious stock broker firm. Only receiving $1000 trainee stipend; he was forced
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military, the worst violence I ever saw in my life was in my home. There’s a school of thought that says you’re a product of your environment.
A lot of people would’ve said, ‘well, look where he’s from. He didn’t have a choice.’ I did have a choice. I made the decision at 5-years-old that when I had children; my children were going to know who their father was. And that no one would ever treat my child as I was being treated.
The film is based on your autobiography, ‘The Pursuit of happyness’, what would you like people to take from both the movie and your book?
When I look back at the journey from homelessness to prosperity, I hold one thing dearer than all else – my commitment to my son. Doing a movie with the top movie star portraying me, doing a book with an editor who's last book won the Pulitzer Prize – all that stuff is great, but the most important thing that I will have ever done in my life was break the cycle of men who were not there for their children.
You dedicated - your book ‘the pursuit of happyness’ – to your mom, Bettye Jean Gardner. In a previous interview, you mentioned she once said that you could become a millionaire if that’s what you wanted. How has she impacted your
Brett, the 16-year-old protagonist, forms the basis of the novel with his rebellious, arbitrary way of thinking. The scene is set
The quests for gold at the end of the rainbow, the hopes of thousands to one day live the fabled American Dream. Worldwide, everyone who is capable looks for their chance to strike it rich. Some of the most successful people today, such as Apple’s Steve Jobs and OK! Magazine’s Richard Desmond, have risen from tough backgrounds (Serafina). Growing up in abject poverty, these individuals found ways to push past the glass ceiling in their respective fields. Interestingly, many of them share similar obstacles on their way to the top.
The main protagonist of the film, Scotty Smalls, is introduced as a straight-A, friendless young boy who has just moved into a new neighborhood in new state. While
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Days of Thunder, a box office hit and Hollywood money maker, captures a love story between wannabe NASCAR superstar Cole Trickle and Dr. Clair Lewicki, Trickle’s psychologist. Cole Trickle has his dreams of becoming a NASCAR superstar when he finds a racecar searching for a driver. He's a hot driver with a hot temper, and this attitude gets him into trouble not only with other drivers, but members of his own team as well. When the worst nightmare of any racecar driver becomes a reality by wrecking his car and suffering from a head injury, Trickle finds himself without a car, team, and many visits to his new psychologist. Dr. Lewicki has no intentions on falling head over heels for Cole Trickle until she starts attending races with him every weekend and oversees his daily activities. The love grows strong but the rules of NASCAR still power over Cole as the company soon finds out that Cole was never released by Dr. Lewicki to...
...ng the underlying theme that drives the story and the movie, propels the reader and viewer to rekindle the desire to hope above all else because hope is all one has in devastating as well as dire needs. Hope overcomes despair, permits others to see your “inner light” to develop integrity which connects with honesty and trust. Hope is the inspiration to continue to live regardless of the circumstances. Red may have narrated; “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” But, Andy Dufresne states it best: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the life and also the author, Jordan Belfort. Jordan becomes discontent with his everyday life and realizes his talent for selling. As he continuously gains more money, he begins using more drugs. Way more drugs. Jordan starts his own brokerage firm named Stratton-Oakmont. Jordan hires a staff of, well, criminals to help him sell cheap stocks. They would sell all of these cheap stocks to their customers, then Belfort would buy large amounts of these stocks, running up the price, and then dump it. Finally, Jordan begins running into a lot of legal trouble as the FBI is on to the ways his brokerage firm works. Although Belfort has the FBI watching him very closely, he continues to spend huge sums of money on things such as boats, cars, houses, strippers/hookers, and last, but certainly not least, drugs. As Jordan’s already massive drug problem continues to escalate, he has to keep a very large portion of his money in a European account to hide it from the Feds. Belfort ends up going to prison for 22 months for fraud of his
The character this film is primarily centered around is Will Hunting. Will lives in a tattered house in a bad neighborhood in the city of Boston. He grew up in foster care where he sustained continual physical abuse as a child. Will has a few close friends he is always with but never opens up about anything below surface level. Will is incredibly gifted with intelligence however he works as a custodian at the highly prestigious school, MIT. Professor Lambeau teaches advanced mathematics at MIT and is the one who discovers Will’s incredible talent for solving advanced mathematical theory. Professor Lambeau has high hopes for Will and pushes him into getting jobs with prestigious employers so that his gift is not wasted working as a custodian. Chuckie Sullivan is one of the closest of Will’s friends. They’ve known each other for years and Chuckie drives Will to work every day. Chuckie cares for Will and realizes the gift that he has and tries to convince Will he should be doing something of greater importance with his life. Skylar is a college stu...
The film exhibits and analyzes the story of NFL player Michael Oher’s life through high school as he endures various adversities and difficulties in his life. It tells Oher’s story of being the son of a cocaine addictive mother and absentee father, who is homeless due the circumstances of his family. Despite not having either of his parents in his life he did have Big Tony, who was his friend’s dad. Big Tony would allow Michael to sleep on his sofa some days when he did not have anywhere else to live and he also was the main cause to Michael being admitted to the Wingate Academy Christian School. At this school Michael meets S.J., who is the son on the Tuohy’s. S.J. begins a friendship with Michael at a time when no one else would and on a rainy day after S.J.’s thanksgiving play, the Tuohys see Michael walking. They ask him ...
In the book, The How of Happiness, author and researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky sets her book apart from other self-awareness books by being the first to utilize empirical studies. She uses data gained through scientific method to provide support for her hypothesis. This hypothesis consists mainly of the idea that we have the ability to overcome genetic predisposition and circumstantial barriers to happiness by how we think and what we do. She emphasizes that being happier benefits ourselves, our family and our community. “The How of Happiness is science, and the happiness-increasing strategies that [she] and other social psychologists have developed are its key supporting players” (3).
Started From The Bottom “All men are created equal”. This is the foundation of the American Dream( Jefferson). The forefathers of the United States believed that all men have equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This appealed to those who needed a fresh start or that just wanted a better life and this ideal has become synonymous with the 20th century America because America prides itself on being the land of opportunity. America has many people from all over the world come to live there because they yearn for opportunity and freedom.
The movie is a very moving, sensitive and emotional story of redemption. The tale of how a young heartless thug can change into a softhearted guardian. This demonstrates that despite the poor living conditions, awful events and how heartless someone may seem. You can adapt to your surroundings and situations, you can also transform your life. Everyone has good in them you just choose whether to value it and utilize it or not appreciate it and discard it.
“The children have been a wonderful gift to me, and I’m thankful to have once again seen our world through their eyes. They restore my faith in the family’s future” (Anderson, 176). Her children were her world; everything she did was for them. She tried her best to be the perfect mother.
According to Webster dictionary the word Happiness in defined as Enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy. People when they think of happiness, they think about having to good feeling inside. There are many types of happiness, which are expressed in many ways. Happiness is something that you can't just get it comes form your soul. Happiness is can be changed through many things that happen in our every day live.
What does it mean to be happy? Happiness is a sensation that people want to have, and a lot of it. Above all else in the world, it’s what we seek and long for. Though this feeling can be found in many different places and at many different times, it isn’t easy to acquire. For some people, happiness might be found in exercise and sustaining good health. On the other hand, others can discover it when they go on vacation and relax. The idea here is that we each have our own things that make us happy.