The Film: The Pursuit Of Happyness (2006)
The Hollywood Version: The touching true rags-to-riches tale of Chris Gardner, who struggled through sleeping in bathrooms and menial jobs to crack his way into becoming a millionaire broker.
Real-life father and son Will and Jaden Smith play the pair.
Just The Facts: Even the man behind the story admits that things were changed – though he allowed it.
Take the age of Chris Gardner's son Christopher. He was two in real life, not five. “I understood that. You've got to give these guys some license,” Gardner has said. “My son was two when we were going through this. Did we have dialogue? Yeah. But there's obviously more you can do when the child is a little older. Give them some license."
Other liberties taken? He didn’t sell bone density scanners, but he did hawk medical supplies. And he was never hit by a car.
Oh, and he didn’t get a foot in the door with a broker by solving a Rubik’s Cube.
Comments
EthanRunt
Jun 3rd 2009, 14:51
So Fargo never stretched the truth from the story it's based on? Interesting.
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MarkPowell
Jun 3rd 2009, 18:21
@ EthanRunt: Fargo is wholly fictional. It merely *declares* tself a true story, (more or less) an outright lie - as (more or less) freely admitted by the Coens.
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adammiller2k
Jun 4th 2009, 7:18
Ben Hur? Did Jesus really give Charlton Heston some water? Were Romans really that homoerotic?
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Rusty4bears
Jun 8th 2009, 8:18
What about A Perfect Storm?? That started fibbing the moment that they lost radio communication with land...15 minutes in.
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