FORREST GUMP (1994)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Originally viewed in 1994)
(Originally viewed in 1994)
"Forrest Gump" was the most celebrated movie of 1994. Not only was it the biggest box-office hit of that year, it also won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing and many other awards. The movie and the character of Forrest Gump have both become cultural icons, already on the pop culture radar with the famous line, "Life is like a box of chocolates." All this attention and awards can make people forget why the heck it became so popular in the first place. I like the film, but I am still trying to figure out the secret of its success.
Forrest Gump is played by Tom Hanks, who underplays the character beautifully. He is a Southern boy who is slower than the average kid. Nevertheless, his caring mother (Sally Field) manages to get him in school thanks to some persuasion with the principal. The problem is Forrest has problems walking (he gets leg braces) and can't seem to get along with kids. Well, there is one that likes him named Jenny (played by Robin Wright) and they become the best of friends. Forrest also discovers one day he is a fast runner. He gets a college scholarship playing football, goes to fight in the Vietnam War, becomes a ping-pong ball champion, starts a business with a shrimp boat appropriately named "Jenny," and becomes friends with Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise), an amputee who was saved in the war by Forrest. Forrest is only missing one thing: Jenny whom he wants to marry. But Jenny has another life as a hippie, drug addict and anti-war protester.
"Forrest Gump" has all the hallmarks of a Hollywood production. It has the big emotions and entertainment value of a sprawling tale of one man's life and his spiritual need for love. But the basic problem I have is that Gump is presented as the village idiot where events happen to him yet he is never affected by them. Having seen the film more than once, I still do not get why writer Eric Roth features all those presidential assassination attempts and actual deaths, from George Wallace to Ronald Reagan, and have Forrest in the background aloof with no emotional connection. You could say that the character is like a feather whose childlike innocence and naivete makes him less susceptible to being harmed or affected by world events - what we don't know, or don't care to know, can't hurt us which is what the film seems to be saying. Yet Forrest goes on with his life, telling of his adventures to pedestrians while he sits on a park bench waiting for a bus. If life were only this simple.
Director Robert Zemeckis doesn't falter with actors, as he's proven with "Back to the Future." Tom Hanks is the star of the show, never aiming to make the character cartoonish or vapid. Hanks brings soul and strength to the character, though it is a two-dimensional role at best. The underrated Robin Wright seems to be playing a more realistic character, teetering on the edge between life and death. A tremendously scary scene shows Jenny in a drug-induced state, walking on the edge of a balcony of a high-rise building while the wind literally wakes her up from her stupor. I also like the moment she revisits her home where she was abused by her father. Also noteworthy is Gary Sinise, in the best performance in the film, as the amputated Lieutenant Dan who wanted to die in the war like his ancestors did in past battles. He eventually finds peace with himself.
"Forrest Gump" was justly celebrated for combining live action elements with actual historic events flawlessly through the magic of digital imagery. It is still a hoot seeing Forrest talking to John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, John Lennon and others. Of course, the CGI technology, as it came to be known, has become the standard for all special-effects. Only the Lennon sequence in the Dick Cavett show is a bit off the mark - Lennon's lips, which I sense were digitally manipulated, don't match the words he speaks.
As pure entertainment, "Forrest Gump" certainly delivers. The ending, which compresses and rushes a series of events regarding Jenny in less than twenty minutes, lacks any real emotional weight since it is given short-shrift (comparatively speaking, Sinise's Dan plight and sense of renewal is far more touching). Jenny's plight has intrigued and bothered me for many years, mainly because her character, a crusader and a rebel, is made to suffer. Forrest plays by the rules and gets by. He just simply knows a lot about love. Sounds vaguely conservative, if you ask me.
