Forrest Gump (1994)

Forrest Gump -Movie Review

Cast : Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinese

Directed by : Robert Zemeckis

Review by Zulfiqar (4.5/5)

            Sitting at a bus-stop, Forrest Gump narrates his life’s story to any person who happens to sit beside him. He is such a dim witted person that he can’t assess the interest level of his listeners. Some just don’t look at him and some just go on reading their book or minding their baby. Forrest is never deterred by this gesture, in fact he completes the whole narration till the climax when somebody reminds him that his destination doesn’t need a vehicle as he can walk to it. Was this was an intention on the part of the director or not I don’t know. But what I can gather is that Forrest is concerned only with living his life rather than taking other peoples’ take on it. It is such a simple and clear message as to the art of living. Do things undeterred and you would get its fair result.

            The achievements of Forrest Gump are mammoth dimensioned. The local practitioner reckons regarding him to his mother that he is born with low IQ and needs a special school. Mother Gump (Sally Field) isn’t accepting like the typical mom. But her typicality stops there. There is no accepting and realization to this fact. She encourages Forrest to go to the local school and face the bully music rather than hiding him in a special institute. The only thing she discourages him is in believing that he is stupid, if someone ever mentions him as. Sally Field makes such a hurting mother. She is the only support to her son and she has only him. She couldn’t even properly make her ends meet. She raises Forrest in poverty conditions but also with love and the will to survive. Forrest meets a sundered heart, Ginny, (his first and only love as that is what it will prove to be) who becomes his best friend. She tries to save him from bullies and when she couldn’t she advises him to run away. He manages as much as he can in his braces and when he outruns their necessity with mightiest speed, he runs to his glory in the local football team, university level and where-not. He later accidentally enrolls in army, befriends Bubba (black Forrest Gump) and participates in Vietnam War. Though Bubba is killed, Forrest saves the whole team and his group leader, embittered Dan. While recovering from the wounds in his tush, he masters ping-pong ball and raises to high levels in that game. When he retires, he starts a shrimp business (dream of Bubba) with lieutenant and limp Dan. Amidst the scare of hurricane, he shines in the shrimp business and makes millions, which Dan invests as shares for him in Apple. The profits he makes, as he doesn’t properly understands them, he gives to Bubba’s family. He meets his Ginny again, a living wreck abused of drugs and a hippy life, but he carries the torch of idol worship for her. She stays with him for some time and leaves him causing his depressed soul to run. Why he runs he doesn’t know? Probably if his mother would have been alive she would have told him something to tide over the situation, but she isn’t there. She dies a satisfied mother seeing her son not only thriving by but doing good. He doesn’t know what to do. He just runs. And runs. And runs. Till he goes to the end of the world. During this journey, he becomes the focus of national attention. The whole population is curious regarding the reason for his running. He doesn’t mention, because he has none. During this foot journey, he becomes accidental messiah to many. He unintentionally gives some captions for companies and even a smiley for a t-shirt. But the end of the world isn’t his destination. He stops suddenly and says he is going back home in one of the funniest scenes of the movie.

            He reunites with Ginny temporarily thereafter and meets Forrest Jr. he is overcome with emotion on having a family of his own. But the family slowly fragments as Ginny dies and leaves the junior in his care. But Forrest weds her before her demise. The movie ends on a happy note regarding the junior.

            Forrest Gump covers the gamut of historical events and range of western trends which defined America. It won the Oscar for VFX that year mainly because of the way it infuses events of the latter part of the twentieth century into the story of Forrest. Forrest teaches Elvis to dance, witnesses the death of JFK, participates in Vietnam war, addresses anti war rally march, sees his friend addicted to hippy life and the trend of flower power, becomes a part of ping-pong diplomacy, participates in an interview with John Lennon, ignores the burgeoning of a ‘fruit company’, Apple inc, and watches his Ginny die of a strange disease, AIDS. The depiction of these events is splashed on the palette of Forrest, which he relates indifferently but unknowingly trudges past with no proper fascination, which they deserved. Is there a gleaning on the point from the director that Forrest’s detachment arising from his mental deficiencies is his true strength. You don’t need to read a book on advertising to do advertising. You just need to write and work. Newton didn’t read gravity to define gravity. Zuckerberg created social network, Grahambell invented telephone and many other pioneers did many other things. These builders of modern civilization may have had some strong basics, but they didn’t dwell on them for long but worked towards their goals. Forrest though doesn’t have any goal, he cancelled the decelerator called standing and wondering. He was a witness to these spectacles but his attitude towards them was indifference. He just got through the odds of a tough life with his deficiencies and a dogged adherence to do what he was ordered to do.

            He took advantage of following something to the letter and exploited it to perfection. He doesn’t get the hang of ping-pong at the start but when someone advises a basic point to keep his eye on the ball, his whole game changes. He goes in shrimp business with no tactics and plan, but follows the suicidal lieutenant Dan with no questions asked. When the hurricane strikes, he doesn’t think of back-footing not because of his bravery, but his duty to follow his senior, which reaps benefits. Forrest has so many finer points about him which exemplify his personality and makes us learn a lot from him.

            Robert Zemeckis collaborated with Tom Hanks with many other projects too and which were all wonderful, but his fascination with hanks started with Forrest. Hanks plays a clear minded simple fool, who is easily bewildered but stubborn to the beliefs what his mother had taught him. Forrest ceases to believe his stupidity, which is his first step in the jungle of life. He doesn’t have a bone of malice or enmity in him, which probably speaks that these things are the result of thinkers rather than the dumb. He understands the meaning of love and gives a lot of it to his Ginny and to Bubba and even to lieutenant Dan. All these characters thrive on his support, which itself is the attestation on his personality. Winston Groom’s book on which the movie is based had many other elements including space travelling and his run in with some cannibals, which makes it more exciting, but the editing work itself limited the movie to 2 hour 20 min and these extra issues would have required a lot more from the writers. I am sure even if these add-ons would have been there, they would have dealt with it just fine. Such was it’s screen writing and scissoring.

            A cameo at the end by Haley Joel Osment is a very intriguing episode. Look how Forrest wonders from the first time he glances at his junior. His expressions are that of happiness, puzzlement, internal fears and contemplative, but then the kid allays his father’s fears in a few seconds episode with the bus driver. ‘Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get’. Forrest was probably ready for those surprises, which took off the shock value for him.