Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

The Pursuit of Sappyness | Will Smith gives Rosario Dawson Seven Pounds of lovin' in his new melodrama.

SEVEN POUNDS   
Directed by Gabriele Muccino. Starring Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Barry Pepper, Woody Harrelson. Opens Fri, Dec 19.
**

I’m curious if Will Smith is ever going to play a character that’s vulnerable. The opening scene of Seven Pounds, in which Smith, as Ben Thomas, calls 911 to report that he’s about to commit suicide, gives hope that we might get to see someone so emotionally damaged that he sees no other answer but to end his life. For the first hour of the film, Thomas works diligently to reward people he thinks are deserving of his help (the kind that only IRS agents can provide), clearly in an effort to atone for a paralyzing memory from his past. You can’t help but wonder what terrible act he committed, which is intriguing — for a while.

However, director Gabriele Muccino (who previously worked with Smith on The Pursuit of Happyness) waits so long to reveal why Thomas is relieving complete strangers of their burdens that one eventually loses any interest in the story altogether. Sure, brief flashbacks tell us that Thomas had a girlfriend and that he may have worked for NASA, but that’s really no reason for him to kill himself, is it? All we know is that he wants to give assistance to people who need it, but only as many as seven, a point conveyed to the viewer ad nauseam in hopes of heightening the melodramatic impact of the film’s title.

When two of Thomas’s beneficiaries start figuring more prominently in the story, doubt starts to creep in about how jarring his past may be. The first is Ezra Turner (Woody Harrelson), a “blind vegan virgin” who pays his taxes, but also plays piano to unappreciative mall patrons and lusts after a waitress, two things Thomas thinks he can help with. The other is Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), a lonely woman — also a vegan — suffering from a heart defect. Though her tax problems are swiftly swept under the rug, she has emotional issues that also require attention. Thomas is all too happy to cater to her needs, going so far as to stay by her hospital bed all night and weed her garden.

This is more or less the moment when it becomes obvious that, once again, Will Smith is playing a hero. He is by no means portraying a vulnerable and wounded man who cannot face living another day (as much as the script says otherwise); he is that one person who is willing to sacrifice his own well-being to change people’s lives for the better. This is nothing new for Smith; we’ve seen it in I Am Legend, Independence Day, Hancock, Hitch, et al.

His character goes to such lengths just to help a woman feel loved, a blind man to see, and to variously improve the lives of five others that you realize whatever he might have done in the past, it is surely voided by his current actions. And when revelations appear that Thomas might be responsible — but, more significantly, believes he is responsible — for the deaths of seven people, it doesn’t seem so bad. Thomas is nothing short of a social-work superman when the time comes for the suicide scene that opens the movie to play out.

Unfortunately, the film never explains why such an individual is supposed to be so captivating; perhaps I’m missing the deep insight offered by the tears of gratitude shed by the supporting characters. I do know this: Seven Pounds could have been a vehicle for Will Smith to finally give an emotionally devastating performance, but, as is so often the case, he winds up looking pretty freaking great.