‘You want something. You go get it. Period.’ (Chris Gardner). Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith) is after the American Dream: ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ (the famous phrase from the Declaration of Independence). After spending his families life savings on portable bone density measurement machines, which he hopes to sell in order to support his family, he finds himself in crippling debt and with a struggling marriage. The problem is that most doctors think the machines are too expensive, and his wife, Linda, is having to work double shifts to try and pay the rent and bills. Eventually Linda leaves and Chris has to care for Christopher, his five-year-old son. Slipping further and further into debt, they are evicted first from their apartment and then from a cheap motel.

After spending a night sleeping in a station toilet, they end up queuing each day for space in a hostel. However the key moment in the film comes when Chris walks past the Stock Exchange one day, and sees a contented looking man stepping out of a shiny red Ferrari. As he looks around him everyone going into or out of the building is smiling and laughing, looking happy. Is this the answer to his problems? Chris applies for an internship, but the catch is that the six-month training post carries no salary. It leaves Chris with a tough decision to take and the desire for a better life for him and his son spurs him on and he accepts. The film is a heartbreaking journey as Chris pursues his, and the American, dream of happiness, but despite all the set backs and difficulties he hangs on to the belief that if you want something badly enough, you will get it in the end.

Part of what makes the film so heart breaking and yet so poignant is that it is based on a true story. Will Smith saw the real Chris Gardner interviewed on an American human interest programme. Watching Chris walk into the bathroom in which he and his son had slept captured Smith’s attention and at he decided that he wanted to tell this story. When Will Smith met Gardner he felt an instant connection, particularly with the idea that a person has command over their future, whatever their situation.

Yet the question as you watch the struggles and heartache unfold is, is it all worth it. The sleeping rough the risks, the dangers to his son. Yes he does turn out to be a millionaire and achieve the American dream, though you don't see this in the film, but was it all worth it. The message of the film is that this is success, but the question remains is that all there is to life? Is wealth the answer?

King Solomon was a fabulously wealthy king who ruled over Israel in her most prosperous era, yet he was still searching for answers, he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes in which he details that search. And he writes this of riches "Everyone comes naked from their mother's womb, and as everyone comes, so they depart..." Jesus tells a parable of a rich man who ripped down his barns and built bigger ones, but who was found wanting when it came to God because he had never given God at thought so intent was he on accumulating wealth.

Solomon's conclusion to his search is the same as Jesus; better to have a relationship with God than wealth.

Christianity & Culture