The Pursuit of Happyness

In 1981 San Francisco, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) invests his family's savings in portable bone-density scanners which he demonstrates to doctors and pitches as a handy improvement over standard X-rays. Although he admits that the machine gives a slightly denser picture than an X-Ray for twice the money. The scanners play a vital role in Chris's life. Chris needed to sell 2 machines a month to pay for his home expenses. 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 investment proves to be a white elephant, which financially breaks the family and as a result, his wife Linda (Thandie Newton) leaves him and moves to New York. Chris had invested his entire life's savings on the machine and had purchased them in bulk. Their son Christopher (Jaden Smith) remains with his father. Linda worked at a hospital and was tired of just existing after working herself to the bone. Chris had also collected several parking tickets on his car, which was towed away, and had resorted to taking the public transport. Chris had met his own father for the first time when he was 28 years old, and he was determined to make sure that his own kid did not have to go through the ordeal of not having his father in his life. While Chris tries to sell one of the scanners, he meets an employee at Dean Witter. The person just pulled up next to Chris in an expensive car and Chris asks him what he does and how. He says that he is a stock-broker, for which one only needs to be good with numbers and people and no college degree is required. Chris decides to apply at the firm. He meets Jay Twistle (Brian Howe), a manager for Dean Witter. Chris impresses him by solving a Rubik's Cube during a short cab ride. Chris does not have enough money for the cab fare and flees the cab driver into a subway station where he barely escapes the cab driver but loses one of his bone scanners in the process. He left his machine with a hippie singer to watch over it as he attended his interview, but the hippie girl decided to run away with it. This new relationship with the Dean Witter manager earns him the chance to become an intern stockbroker. The day before the interview, Chris grudgingly agrees to paint his apartment for free to postpone eviction by his landlord for late rent. While painting, Chris is greeted by two policemen at his doorstep, who arrest him for failure to pay multiple parking tickets. Chris has to spend the night in jail, complicating his schedule for the interview the next day. Chris narrowly arrives at Dean Witter's office on time, albeit still in shabby, paint-spattered 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. A possible position at her sister's boyfriend's restaurant tempts Linda to leave for New York. With regret, she leaves Christopher in Chris's care. However, Chris's financial problems worsen when his already diminished bank account is garnished by the IRS for unpaid income taxes, and his landlord finally evicts him and Christopher. With only $21.33 in his bank account, Chris and Christopher are left homeless and desperate; Chris is able to get food and beds at the local shelter, and eventually scrapes together cash for a motel room, but the locks are then changed when he can't pay on time. They are forced at one point to stay in a bathroom at a subway station. Motivation drives him to find the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, which has a homeless shelter primarily for single mothers and their children. The church's owner does not let him stay due to the fact that it is for women and children, although she tells him about a local church that also provides shelter but has very limited space. Due to demand for the limited rooms, Chris must frantically race from his internship work early each afternoon in order to land a place in line. Chris finds the bone scanner that he lost in the subway station from a demented man who believes it to be a time machine, and it is now damaged. He sells his blood to pay for repairs and then gets a local physician to purchase it, thereby freeing himself to focus solely on his stockbroker training. Disadvantaged by his limited work hours and knowing that maximizing his client contacts and profits is the only way to earn the one paid position that he and his 19 competitors are fighting for, Chris develops a number of ways to make phone sales calls more efficiently. He also reaches out to potential high value customers, defying protocol. One sympathetic prospect takes him and his son to a San Francisco 49ers game. Regardless of his challenges, Chris never reveals his lowly circumstances to his co-workers, even going so far as to lend one of his bosses five dollars for a cab, a sum he can't afford. He also studies for and aces the stockbroker license exam. As Chris concludes his last day of internship, he is summoned to a meeting with the partners. Mr. Frohm (James Karen) notes that Chris is wearing a nice shirt, to which Chris explains he thought it appropriate to dress for the occasion on his last day. Mr. Frohm thanks him and says Chris should wear another one the following day, letting 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 embrace him. They walk down a street and joke with each other (and are passed by the real Chris Gardner, in a business suit). Gardner went on to form his own multi-million-dollar brokerage firm in 1987, and Gardner sold a minority stake in his brokerage firm in a multi-million-dollar deal in 2006.