Chris Gardener (Will Smith) is a salesman who has invested all his and his wife’s money in an obsolete piece of medical equipment. Unable to sell them, the Gardener family is left to live in poverty. One day, Chris bumps into a stockbroker who is living the good life high on the hog. Chris asks how he could get to be like that, and is told to try for an internship as a stockbroker. With a head full of dreams Chris takes the internship, which he soon discovers is unpaid. His wife, unable to cope with this new job for no money, leaves Chris and their son, Christopher (Jaden Smith). Despite no money, and often no place to sleep at night, Chris is determined to get the only stockbroker position offered after the internship is up. But there is no quarantine he’ll be able to beat out the many other interns who are vying for the same position.