E Pursuit of Happiness - After watching the movie, answer the following questions: 1. Throughout the process of trying to re-write his own life story, Chris Gardner goes through several major life changes. Discuss these changes and explain what lessons Chris learns about the idea of “the pursuit of happiness.”

“I met my father for the first time when I was 28 years old. When I had children, my children were going to know who their father was.” So vows Chris Gardner, an earnest salesman and father desperately struggling to make ends meet on the hard streets of San Francisco in the early 1980s. But his chosen vocation, peddling expensive bone-density scanners that most physicians don’t want, has left him and those he loves hovering on the brink of disaster.

   Day after unsuccessful day, Chris comes home to his dispirited girlfriend, Linda, and their 5-year-old son, Christopher. Linda pulls double shifts to stay within striking distance of solvency, all the while chastising Chris for his failure to provide. Predictably, she doesn’t think much of his latest brainstorm: securing an internship at the stock brokerage firm Dean Witter. Linda’s bitterness and negativity may wear on Chris, but they can’t dampen the weary salesman’s delight in his son. Christopher is the apple of Daddy’s eye.

   Then Linda leaves Chris (and their son) for a job in New York. She’s barely out the door when Chris learns he’s been offered the coveted internship. The catch? It’s unpaid. Despite the financial risk, Chris decides to go for it, frantically juggling his schedule to get Christopher to and from day care each day. But dwindling savings quickly result in an eviction from their apartment. And then another from a motel. Soon, father and son are homeless, staying in city shelters on good nights and in public restrooms on the worst.

     As his desperation mounts, Chris clings tenaciously to the hope that his hard work will eventually pay off. And his dogged pursuit of a better life forges a powerful father-son bond that no misfortune can destroy.

“You’re a good papa.” Those tenderhearted words from Christopher to his father as they spend the night in a homeless shelter poignantly capture the essence of The Pursuit of Happyness. Chris isn’t perfect, but one emotional scene after another clearly demonstrate his drive to protect and provide for his son. What won’t trip them up—and might even breathe new life into their own relationships—is Chris Gardner’s powerful, passionate pursuit of the best life possible for his little boy.

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