Director: Denzel Washington
Stars: Derek Luke, Denzel Washington, Joy Bryant

How others will see it. This feel-good bio aims to put a smile on the faces of its audience. And it will probably succeed, because people want to believe in its story. No matter how humble your origins, no matter how troubled your childhood, you can still get your act together and lead a productive, well-grounded life.

How I felt about it. Upon seeing this film, I was curious about the accuracy of its depiction of the life of its real-life hero, Antwone Fisher. I looke up wikipedia.com, and promptly found several important inaccuracies in the film:

• The perfect girlfriend, Cheryl, who thinks Antwone is the greatest thing since sliced bread, appears to be fictional.
• No mention in the film is made of Fisher's first mentor, who helped him get his high school diploma. This diploma was his ticket into the Navy.
• Fisher lived much longer than one day at a homeless shelter.
• Before joining the Navy, Fisher earned money working at a shelter for pimps.
• In the movie, Fisher is a virgin who never in his life smoked or used drugs. Nothing in the Wikipedia entry directly denies this, but it is difficult to believe nonetheless.
• Fisher's best friend Jesse, who is shot during an armed robbery, isn't mentioned in the Wikipedia bio and is probably largely fictional.
• Fisher found his family several years after leaving the Navy.

What I am griping about is the inevitable sweetening of the story by Hollywood. The film begins with Antwone as an angry, lonely man with no family and no real sexual experience. By film's end, he's a great guy with an enormous extended family (they fill a huge living room, and all are eager to meet him), and he has a perfect girlfriend who gives him a wide smile every time she sees him. Antwone merits this, presumably, because he has stopped beating people up, and has charmed the shrink and his still comely wife (Salli Richardson).

Fisher's good fortune is shared by his psychiatrist, Denzel Washington, whose own family problems are somehow (it's never explained exactly how) healed by Fisher. Maybe it's his touching poetry. Probably, it's the Hollywood script changes.

I have nothing against Horatio Alger tales. And the principal moral of the film, get your act together, is always welcome. The problem is the Hollywood need to sweeten and dramatize the story to pander to its intended audience. This undermines its authenticity.