The Pursuit of Happiness

A lot of the films about disaffected youth in America produced at the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s were very clichéd and cheaply made by people who really didn't know anything about the subject. They were often clumsily and quickly made to cash in on the period's 'youthquake'.

This is not entirely the case here, though it does have its clumsy clichéd moments. By and large, this film was sensitively executed, about a Columbia student, from an old and wealthy New York family, who accidentally knocks down and kills a woman with his car on a very rainy night and where the tragedy leads him.

Michael Sarrazin is good to look at, as his girlfriend played by Barbara Hershey and he turns in an honest and tender performance. The plot is quite thin but the sensitivity and reasonable depth of many of the various performances, notably by his gentle father (Arthur Hill) and bigoted grandmother (Ruth White), give it substance. It's definitely worth watching.