Row Over Real-life 'Villain' Of The Pursuit Of Happyness - Comments and Message Board

This movie should have been called The Pursuit of Money instead of Happiness.I agree that the way Chris Gardner's wife was portrayed in the movie lent unjustified bias towards the main character. His wife was extremely hardworking for example, during the first part of the movie before they break up as a couple, Chris' (Will Smith)wife (Thandie Newton), pleads with him to find the necessary rent money as she has been working DOUBLE SHIFTS FOR THE PAST 4 MONTHS. She then details how difficult it is for her to come off one shift, collect Christopher from the ramshackle Daycare Centre, give him a hot meal, bath him, then return to do a second shift at work. What woman in their right mind is going to put up with a man like that? He spent all his time trying to sell hard to sell machinery to medical companies. When he was unable to sell the last 3 machines and she questions him on what they were going to do, his reply is: "Everything is going to be alright". Just because she says in the movie, "I just don't care anymore", does not mean that she didn't care about her son because it is the wife who decides to leave Chris and take the son WITH HER. But it is Chris who INSISTS that his son stay with him no matter what, even if he and his son have to spend the night sleeping in the subway toilets! Come on, this guy can not be for real! It was at this point in the movie, that I felt that Chris Gardner must have had a nervous breakdown. Remember, at the start of this movie the audience hears Will Smith's voice (as Chris Gardner), stating that it was not until he had reached his late 20s that he met his father for the first time in his life. This is then the basis for his behaviour in insisting that his son be dragged around from pillar to post, from one hostel to the other, just so that they stay together. The other point I want to make is that Chris Gardner eventually won the unpaid internship as a Stock Broker but suppose there was someone else who wanted it just as badly or even more than he did and was selected over him. Then I think it would be safe to say that there would have been no book and certainly no movie deal (Will Smith is an executive producer of this movie). There are parts of this movie that made me wonder whether what I was watching was factual or exaggerated for the sake of dramatic effect. There are other aspects of this movie which seem to suggest that Black people are not honest when it comes to lending or paying money back that is owed by them. It appeared to me, that it was the white middle class men that Chris Gardner had to suck up to (impressing with rubic cube skills to paying $5 for a cab) which helped in his pursuit of landing the internship. Apparently, Chris Gardner and his now grown up son were on a recent episode of the Oprah Winfrey show but I missed it. Perhaps someone who watched the show could give their comments. I would like to know what his son thinks about his mother today. I think the only thing Chris Gardner's wife can be accused of is not having enough faith in her then husband.