When we meet him, Gardner’s life savings are tied up in selling portable x-ray machines, and his wife (played strikingly by Thandie Newton) soon leaves the two male Gardners. While real life Gardner Jr. was an infant, Jaden Smith’s portrayal of a five-year-old provides a perfect foil to Gardner’s words of wisdom and determination. The addition of an actor with a more reactive age also draws the audience into what might otherwise be an angry and abrasive (cocky?) portrayal of Gardner by Smith. While some biopics have allowed me to lose myself in the historical figure and forget about the actor (Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line, for instance), I was constantly aware that I was watching Will Smith.

Smith has exhibited some of the same go-get ‘em attitude as Gardner, and his portrayal is fueled by that. “The concept this country is based on is the hope that any person, armed with their own will and determination, can create their life, can create their situation—from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high,” says Smith. We certainly admire Gardner (and Smith) for his desire to provide for his child, to get ahead, and to rise from the ashes of his former life.

But what I couldn’t stand in the culmination of the movie was the missing gratitude. Gardner never acknowledges in the action on screen or the occasional voice-overs that anyone ever helped him. He doesn’t thank God, his employers, his friends, or even his son. Everything we see Gardner do, he does all by himself. When he gets an offer for an internship, when the rent isn’t charged until a month after it’s due, when he’s taken to a San Francisco 49ers game by a client, Gardner always sees what everyone else has and he does not.

Smith’s portrayal of Gardner may be dead on, and I certainly think Jaden’s work as an actor is just beginning. But if Gardner truly believes that he made it on his own, then he’s missing out on quite a bit of his life. While the Rubik’s cube interaction may be creative license, it seems improbable that anyone would give a homeless man the breaks that Gardner gets in just being given a chance to compete at Dean Witter. That’s not fair or even right, but Gardner overcame things with persistence, and with the kindness of strangers.

When the pursuit is over, it seems that Gardner found material success, his own brand of happyness. But what I wish for him and the audience would be an experience of joy, a lasting peace that seems absent. And perhaps that’s where the gratitude comes in. As he sought after material things, Gardner saw his hard work as his only road to success and what he wanted. Perhaps if he understood gratitude and the community that helps shape us into who we are, then he would also have found joy. Regardless, Pursuit misses the point: we really are in this together.