Please spoil "Happyness" for me! (May contain open spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

I just donated blood for the Red Cross and they had the “Pursuit of Happyness” DVD playing on the TV. I came in the middle, my attention faded in and out, but by the end I was paying attention, but I couldn’t hear the audio at all. Here’s what I saw.

Will Smith gets called into the board room and everybody looked very serious. It didn’t look good for Will. There was some discussion, his eyes turned red like he was trying to keep from crying, someone shook his hand, and someone else pulled a bill out of his wallet and handed it to him. He wipes his eyes and leaves the room. I figured he was getting fired, which seems like a downer of an ending. He left the office very quickly, looking totally stressed out, goes straight to where his son is, picks him up and gives him a big hug like there’s no tomorrow. Then the screen says he left Dean Witter to start his own brokerage, and later sold his share in a muli-million dollar deal. WTF? That last scene sure didn’t look like, “Hey we’re all smiling and happy because you’re getting a great job with a big salary.”

So what exactly happened in that final scene?

2

[spoiler]He wasn’t expecting to get the job, but he does. Not a great film, but Smith sells the moment very well and is quite touching in his genuine humility at making it.

I think the bill was him paying him back the money he borrowed earlier in the film ($ Smith couldn’t afford to lend because of his finanical straits).[/spoiler]

3

Thanks, now I can sleep at night. :smiley:

OK, so how come nobody was smiling? I figured Smith would have at least smiled and look relieved. There was no back-patting, maybe only one guy shook hands. Visually the mood was just all wrong.

Never mind, I know the answer.

Hollywood.

Those guys were probably partners and you don’t get three partners in a room to make a job offer to an intern, anway.

4

Rent the movie and you’ll understand that the mood in that scene was perfect for that movie.

5

The dialogue in that scene went something like this:

Big Executive Hotshot: Nice shirt (referencing the first interview, when he showed up in painting clothes)
Will Smith: Yeah, I thought I would wear one today, it being the last day and all.
BEH: Be sure to wear it tomorrow, too. You got the job.

And personally, I read the hugging etc. afterwards to be more “overflowing joy” than “consolation for a hard life”.

6

Am I the only person who thought this thread was going to be about Happiness and was trying to think of a way to tell the OP that the dad

is a paedophile who gets away with it in the end?

7

You and me both, Alice.

I’ll happily spoil any Todd Solondz movie I’ve seen; given how much he despises his audience, he probably doesn’t want you to see it either.

8

What reason do you think he gets away with it? The family of the boy knows and the movie ends with the wife leaving him a mere day or so after the discover of his rape, so I think there’s plenty of time (and evidence) for things to proceed legally. We just never get that far in the story.And I think it’s a terrific film–dark, disturbing, but also morbidly funny at times.

9

The kicker was the question asked of Will Smith

BEH: Was it as easy as it looked?

10

Yah, I really liked it too, which makes me worry about myself, just a tad.

However, I was left with the feeling that he was going to get away with it, for some reason. I have no idea why.

11

I figure there was no way the father was going to graffiti Dylan Baker’s house and leave it at that. It’s not a police procedural, so we don’t need to see the justice system actually kick in to be confident that prosecution is not far away.