Ah, we meet again. My old nemesis. Aka--the first time I became disillusioned by the Academy Awards. You, Mr. Gump, killed the believer in me. The believer in all of us. Was it worth it?
Plot summary (with spoilers): A CGI metaphor floats down from the sky while the opening credits roll. It lends at Forrest's feet. Forrest picks it up and puts it in his Curious George book inside his briefcase. He's at a bus stop, dressed in a dapper blue suit. A woman gets off the bus and sits down next to him. He introduces himself to her, offers her chocolate and a pithy expression. She declines the chocolate, but this doesn't stop Forrest from talking. He proceeds to tell her the story of his life, and she neither tells him to cram it nor gets up and walks away, so we know this story isn't set in California.
Forrest grew up with his Momma. She put braces on his legs so he would walk straight, and insisted he go to a regular school, even though his IQ was only 75. All the kids at school made fun of him, except the pretty girl named Jenny. They were instantly in love. Well, he was, anyway. Jenny asked him if he was stupid or something, but kindly. "My momma always says, stupid is as stupid does". Wait--what the fuck does that mean? Stupid is...hold on...you mean like...how does "stupid" do something? YOU'RE MOVING TOO FAST FOR ME, FORREST.
At any rate, Forrest and Jenny grow up to high school age and look like Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Some bullies chase Forrest and Jenny tells him to run Forrest, run. Forrest blows through the football field and the coach puts him on the team. He gets a full ride scholarship into college despite being a moron, because that's fair somehow.
The team wins the national championship whatevers and they get to go to the White House and meet the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. Forrest tells Kennedy he has to go pee (which was in the commercial, which I repeated over and over again in 1994, even before I ever saw the movie, "I believe he said he had to go pee") .
As Forrest's life improves, Jenny's gets worse. Her father molested her as a child, and as an adult she became bitter and rudderless. She grew apart from Forrest and disappeared with the evil hippies. Before she goes, Forrest tells her he's joined the military. She warns him if there's ever any trouble to just run, Forrest, run.
Forrest goes to Vietnam, where generally things are not nearly as bad as other movies would have us believe. He meets Bubba, a fellow "slow" person, who enjoys shrimp and talks about it constantly. He and Forrest agree to start a shrimp company after they leave the war. He also meets Lt. Dan. Lt Dan's ancestors have each died in every war preceding this one, and Lt Dan expects to die here.
Eventually, some guy named Charlie attacks and men in Forrest's squad are getting slaughtered. Lt Dan calls for a retreat, and Forrest runs. He runs so fast, he's quickly out of danger, and also alone. So he runs back, searching for Bubba. He stumbles across several other men who are wounded, and he rescues them one by one. He encounters Lt Dan, who's legs have been blown to bits. He rescues Dan and goes back again, finally finding Bubba. Bubba's insides are outside, and there's nothing Forrest can do. He runs back out of the jungle, getting shot once in the buttocks.
At the VA hospital, legless Lt Dan is angry and bitter and wishes he weren't alive, while Forrest enjoys ice cream, and doesn't really seem to miss Bubba anymore. One night, Lt Dan crawls over to Forrest's bed, and pulls him to the ground, angrily cursing him out for saving his life. "What do I do now, Forrest?!" Forrest doesn't have an answer.
Forrest goes to the White House again to receive the Medal of Honor. He moons President Johnson. Also, while in DC, he stumbles across a huge anti-war protest at the Capitol. The hippies are thrilled to see a man in uniform convert to their side, so they usher him up stage to give his opinion about the war. Just as he's about to speak, someone cuts the mic, so we never learn Forrest's position on the topic. Which is more than a little cowardly, movie, but whatever. The upshot is, Jenny's in the crowd. She rushes over to greet him and the hug in the fountain while everybody cheers. That night they go to a Black Panther party, where Jenny's douche hippie boyfriend slaps her. Forrest whales on the dude, and the Black Panthers kick them both out. Forrest begs Jenny to go back to Alabama with him, but she says she can't. She leaves with the dickbag hippie the next day.
In the meantime, Forrest learns that he has a natural affinity for ping pong, just like he did for running. The army decides he's best served as PR rather than as a grunt back in Vietnam. After a game, he happens to stumble upon Lt Dan. Dan is angrier than before, with long hair and a beard. He's an alcoholic living on welfare and in squalor. Forrest takes all this in stride. He becomes the national champion best ping pong guy whatever thing, and it's time to go to the White House. Again. And meet the President. Again. President Nixon recommends Forrest stay at a nice hotel called Watergate, and that night Forrest happens to witness five men with flashlights looking for something. Wah-wah.
Finally, the war is over. Forrest goes back home to Momma, who immediately pimps him out as a ping pong paddle spokesman. He earns 25,000 dollars for the commercial, which he spends on a boat to start his shrimping company. Lt Dan shows up, to Forrest's delight, and agrees to be his first mate. They have no success at shrimping until a hurricane comes and destroys every other boat in the area but theirs. God is just kind of mean sometimes. After not dying in the hurricane, Lt. Dan and God come to some kind of understanding and Dan learns to let go of the bitterness.
Forrest becomes hugely successful as a shrimp boat captain, becomes a millionaire, goes on the Dick Cavett show with John Lennon, inspires the lyrics to Imagine, and is generally set for life. Momma dies from cancer, but has the grace to do it off-camera.
So Jenny comes back to fuck things up for Forrest again. She's utterly broken and depressed, and of course Forrest is just thrilled to see her, and invites her to live in his and Momma's old house with him. They live there for a time, until one night Forrest abruptly proposes to her. She turns him down gently, but Forrest is still depressed. To make it up to him, she sneaks into his bed, tells him she loves him, has sex, and then leaves the following morning before he wakes up. Jenny sucks out loud.
Forrest wakes up the next day, and starts running. He doesn't stop at the end of the driveway, the street, the town, or the state. He runs from one coast to the other and then back again. He acquires a following, a bunch of people who run with him, wanting to know what he's running for. He inspires one man to create the slogan "SHIT HAPPENS" and another to create the smiley-face "Have a Nice Day" T-shirts. Finally, after three years of running, Forrest has processed his grief enough and stops. He decides to go home. His fellow runners are confused, and don't know what to do.
Back at the bus stop, it's present day. Forrest is talking to a different lady than before. She's really engaged in the story. Forrest reveals that he's here today waiting for the bus because Jenny wrote him a letter saying she wanted to see him. He gives the lady the address, and she tells him it's only six blocks away, and he needn't take the bus. He runs off, thanking her.
He arrives at Jenny's apartment. She's looking quite together, and even has a job. Oh, and a kid. Named Forrest. After his dad. Forrest Gump. Forrest is stunned. His lips trembling, he asks Jenny "is he...like me...or is he...?" "He's very smart, Forrest", Jenny assures him. Forrest gasps with relief and blinks back tears. By far the most effective moment in the movie. Jenny then tells Forrest she has a virus and is dying. She needs Forrest to raise little Forrest Jr as if he were his own kid. Uh, I mean, because he totally is his own kid.
Jenny dies from AIDS and courteously as Momma died from cancer, and Forrest and his son are left alone.
Forrest takes little Haley Joel to the bus stop for his first day of school. He gives Forrest Junior his old Curious George book. The metaphor falls out. Forrest Junior gets on the bus, waves goodbye to his dad. Forrest waves back. The metaphor floats back up into the sky, and we leave this strange fever dream world behind.
Review: I didn't catch this movie at the theatres. I saw it about six months or so after, on VHS, after hearing for six months non-stop about how it was the best movie ever in the history of cinema. When I finally watched it, I thought it was fine, but was in no way bowled over. And then of course, it beat out Pulp Fiction for the Oscar, and I became enraged, and my earlier "not bad" assessment turned into "fuck that movie!". I hadn't seen it since 1994 until last night, and this time around I liked it a lot more. It really is more satirical than sincere. At first viewing, I cringed a bit at the ridiculous coincidences and the corny jokes ("imagine there's no Heaven, it's easy if you try"), and thought the movie was trying way too hard. But I see now that that was the joke. Unlike in many movies, Forrest didn't really have any special Retarded Person Magic Knowledge. He was just living his life like everyone else, and it was the other people in the story who imbued that Magic Knowledge onto him. Lt Dan screams at Forrest, "What do I do now?!" and Forrest has no answer. Forrest was asleep and just wants to go to bed. The runners at the end of the movie think Forrest is running for some deep and symbolic purpose, but he's just running because he's sad about Jenny. They're the ones who have fallen for the movie cliche, but the movie itself has not. I really enjoyed how we were always encouraged to see the world through Forrest's eyes, which is why Vietnam didn't really seem all that bad, and Jenny's father was just a little mean, and Lt Dan was just a bit grumpy, and those men in the Watergate Hotel just were playing a game with flashlights. Every horrific moment was constantly being downplayed and given a light touch.
And of course, the movie also plays it totally straight much of the time, telling just a very simple story about a simple man who accidentally inspires those around him. Lt Dan really does have it out with God and make peace with Him, and the movie doesn't wink at that.
And then there's the extremely frustrating Jenny, who uses and abuses Forrest at every turn. I hated her in 1994 and I still hate her now, thought I must admit I understand her a bit more this time around. There but for the grace of God, and all that.
I don't think the movie would be what it is without Tom Hanks, finally. He makes the movie and creates a character so indelible and perfectly realized. It's impossible to imagine anyone else doing the role better, or even half as well. Tom Hanks deserved the Oscar, and it's this movie where he cemented himself as one of the greats, I believe.
Stars: Four and a half out of five. (Can't do it. Can't give it the same rating as Fiction).
Next, "In the Heat of the Night" and "Silence of the Lambs." Yum!
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