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Seven Pounds is a 2008 American drama film directed by Gabriele Muccino, written by Grant Nieporte, and starring Will Smith as a man who sets out to change the lives of seven people; Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, and Barry Pepper also star. The film was released in theaters in the United States of America on December 19, 2008, by Columbia Pictures. Despite receiving negative reviews from critics, it was a box-office success, grossing $169.7 million worldwide against a production budget of $54 million.
A year after the crash, having quit his job as an aeronautical engineer, Tim donates a lung lobe to his brother Ben, an IRS employee. Six months later he donates part of his liver to social services worker Holly. After that, he begins searching for more candidates to receive donations. He finds George, a junior hockey coach, and donates a kidney to him, and donates bone marrow to a young boy, Nicholas.
Tim contacts Holly and asks if she knows anyone who deserves help. She suggests Connie Tepos, who lives with an abusive boyfriend, so he gives her his number in case she wants his help. Tim moves out of his house and into a local motel, taking with him his pet box jellyfish. One night, after being beaten, Connie contacts Tim, who gives her the keys and deed to his beach house. She takes her two children and they move into their new home.
Having stolen his brother's , and presenting himself as Ben, Tim checks out candidates for his two final donations. The first is Ezra Turner, a blind meat salesman and pianist. Tim calls him at work, harassing him, to check if he is quick to anger. Ezra remains calm, so Tim decides he is worthy.
He then contacts Emily Posa, a self-employed greeting card printer who has a heart condition and a rare blood type. Tim spends time with her, weeding her garden and fixing her rare Heidelberg Windmill press. He begins to fall in love with her and decides that, as her condition has worsened, he needs to make his donation.
Ben tracks down Tim at Emily's, demanding that Tim return his IRS credentials. After an interlude with Emily, Tim leaves her sleeping and returns to the motel. He fills the bathtub with ice water to preserve his vital organs, climbs in, and kills himself by pulling his box jellyfish into the water with him. His friend Dan acts as executor to ensure that his organs are donated, his heart to Emily and his to Ezra.
Afterward, Emily meets Ezra at his concert at a park, and they begin to talk.
Smith described the reason he took on the role:
Smith felt that the character needed to be a quiet and rather introverted person who does not burn himself out at every possible instance. The character was a contrast to Smith's previous characters, and Smith felt that director Gabriele Muccino's trust in him helped him relax and avoid overextending himself. Smith acknowledged Seven Pounds as a drama film, but he saw it as more of a love story.
Most of the film was shot in Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Malibu, California. Points of interest used in the film include the Travel Inn in Tujunga, California, the Colorado Bar, the Huntington Library, the Sheraton, and the Pasadena Ice Skating Rink all in Pasadena, as well as Malibu Beach in Malibu.
The film was released on December 19, 2008, to 2,758 theaters in the United States and Canada. It grossed an estimated US$16 million, placing second at the weekend box office after Yes Man. The opening gross was the lowest for a film starring Smith since Ali in 2001. The gross was US$5 million less than anticipated, partially ascribed to winter storms in the Northeast over the weekend.
Varietys film reviewer Todd McCarthy predicted that the movie's climax "will be emotionally devastating for many viewers, perhaps particularly those with serious religious beliefs," and characterized the film as an "endlessly sentimental fable about sacrifice and redemption that aims only at the heart at the expense of the head." A. O. Scott, writing for The New York Times, said that the movie "may be among the most transcendently, eye-poppingly, call-your-friend-ranting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-just-to-go-over-it-one-more-time crazily awful motion pictures ever made."
Positive reviews singled out Dawson's performance. Richard Corliss wrote in Time that Dawson gives "a lovely performance," while Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle noted that Dawson's performance "shows once again that she has it in her to be the powerhouse." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times commented on the fact that the audience is kept completely out of the loop as to what Ben is doing, comparing the film to Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï, pointing out how he "finds this more interesting than a movie about a man whose nature and objectives are made clear in the first five minutes, in a plot that simply points him straight ahead."
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