Review of … And the Pursuit of Happiness (1986) by Walter M — 21 Nov 2013

"And the Pursuit of Happiness" is a documentary from Louis Malle wherein he travels the United States from Florida to Nebraska to California to explore the issue of immigration. Along the way, he talks to people from a wide variety of walks of life from day laborers to a dictator who have come to the United States for many different reasons.

(And it is cool that Malle had the foresight to talk to somebody like Franklin Chang Diaz, a space shuttle astronaut, who would one day have his own wikipedia page.) But with the exception of those from Cambodia, Vietnam, Soviet Union, Cuba and El Salvador being refugees at the tail end of the Cold War, this is pretty basic stuff, especially taking into account the lack of personal perspective from Malle, himself a relative newcomer to the United States.