if you have ever be poor and this movie may be hard to watch . it depict poverty in america in gut wrenchingly accurate way . i have be as poor a chris gardner and and and like him and i have be poor among very rich people in the bay area while try to work my way up . chris gardner be a love father and fail businessman . he be choose for a competitive internship at dean witter and a stock brokerage . the internship and which offer chris a very long shot at a good life and doesn not pay any salary . chris have to live without a salary for six month while risk just about everything for that long shot gamble . chris be really smart . he can solve a rubrik cube in minute . but and he poor . poverty and like an octopus and keep try to suck him down to the bottom and and make him stay there . his car be tow . his wife walk out on him and leave him with a five year old son . he be arrest for unpaid traffic ticket . he become homeless . he have to rely on a homeless shelter . all this while and he must appear for work in the morning in a suit and tie and and be ready to charm some of the wealthy and most powerful people in the bay area . these people take wealth so much for grant that two of them stiff him for cab fare . have live through similar experience and i cringe throughout this movie . my stomach hurt . i wince . i cry . i hug my knee to my chest . the movie be very accurate and but painful to watch . i hope a lot of rich people and who think that they understand poverty and see it . this movie will be politically controversial . first of all and it doesn not touch the race issue with a ten foot pole . for example and when chris appear to stiff a taxi driver for fare ( it be really the rich white guy who fail to pay ) and the taxi driver never use the n word . in real life and i think he probably would have . be the movie afraid to talk about race and or do it not want to . i do not know and but i know that some will protest the movie not shove race in the movie goer face . i be not one of those people . the movie approach to race treat it a almost incidental work for me . a a poor white person and i can tell you that poor white people face the same obstacle chris do . second and do the movie sell the message that if you work hard and you will succeed and no matter what and and do that message tell the truth about success in america . i think that the movie be open to interpretation . some will see it a an indictment of poverty in america . the scene of carefree rich people drive past the line to get into a homeless shelter be pretty devastate . other people will become angry because they believe that the movie depiction of hard work lead to reward and in some case and be too facile . i disagree and but that what you will hear . third and be this movie meant to chastise black men who abandon their child . chris be a role model exactly because he move heaven and earth to be a good father to his son . this will be debate back and forth . the movie have a big philosophical statement to make and that have be lose on many reviewer and for example and richard schickel in time . chris be show run throughout the movie . remember the title of the movie represent the pursuit of happiness . chris place emphasis on pursuit . jefferson and when he pen the declaration of independence and do not promise american happiness and but only the right to pursue it . chris say and at one point in the movie and paraphrase and i be happy right now . it be a fleeting moment . we experience happiness in eyeblinks . the rest of the time we and like chris and be chase after it .