FORREST GUMP
A film review by Sukumar Ramanathan
Copyright 1994 Sukumar Ramanathan
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Sally Field Director: Robert Zemeckis Screenplay: Eric Roth
The simple-minded naif is a staple of literature. Think of Don Quixote tilting at windmills or of Huckleberry Finn on a raft down the Mississippi. They are direct and open in their dialogue with the reader, recounting events with amazement, little aware that the rest of the characters are laughing up their sleeves at their innocence and naivete. By the end of the book, however, we know that it is these very facets of their characters that let them vanquish the cynicism and seeming hopelessness of everyday life.
Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) is such a character. He is born with an IQ of 75, and plagued with rickety legs. Children refuse to sit next to him on the school bus. They chase him on their bicycles as he tries desperately to hobble away, and throw stones at him. The only two people that believe in him are his mother (Sally Field) and his friend Jenny (Robin Wright).
And yet, through every setback that life can throw at him, Forrest persists. He becomes an All-American running back, a war hero, a fishing-boat magnate, a philanthropist and a cult hero. Slow-talking and wide-eyed, painfully enunciating each word as he talks, Forrest overcomes contempt and barbs and violence to achieve both acclaim and internal peace.
Along the way, he is our window on twenty-five years of American life, ranging from the early Elvis to the beginnings of AIDS. Through him and Jenny, we see desegregation, the Vietnam war, Watergate, disco, and the running boom. While dissent and protest rage all around him, Forrest remains unsullied. His momma has taught him to be proud of himself, to try hard, and to be a man of honor. This is so unusual to the masses around him that they see him as a mystical leader.
The danger with a story like this is that it is as delicate as spun sugar. A single misstep, a false note of dialogue, and you've broken the fantasy that the audience has suspended itself in.
Hanks comes through with flying colors. He is at once so earnest and sweet, like a character in a Frank Capra film, that you find yourself rooting for him every step of the way. Not once does he step outside his character or offer a knowing wink. Forrest Gump is a character of little self-awareness and of no internal life. In many ways, he is like Chance the Gardener (in "Being There") or Zelig. He reveals himself only by his actions. Hanks gets you to empathise even after divesting himself of any inside spark. It is a high-wire act without a net, and the film succeeds because he traverses the tightrope with nary a hitch.
Robert Zemeckis, the director, specializes in stories that ask you to indulge him with their premise. His previous movies include BACK TO THE FUTURE and WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. Just accept this idea of a DeLorean that takes you back in time, he says, or that cartoon characters can coexist with humans. I'll envelop you in the story and have you believing by the end. It's ROCKY with a little help from Industrial Light and Magic.
The technical people behind the scenes have done a terrific job. Here's JFK shaking hands with Forrest. There's Forrest showing LBJ the war-wound on his buttock. And who is this? Why, it's John Lennon as a fellow guest on the Dick Cavett show, getting inspiration for "Imagine" from Forrest's words! The splicing is seamless and doesn't distract from the story at all. The editors even get the graininess of the old newsreels spot on.
There are certain scenes in movies that linger long in memory. They show a director in full cry, completely in command of the storytelling. Think of the Mercury astronauts striding down in their spacesuits with the surging Jerry Goldsmith score surrounding you in THE RIGHT STUFF; or of the continuous three minute shot where Scorsese shows you just how heady it is to be an up-and-coming Goodfella in the hottest nightclub in New York. There are at least two such scenes here.
The first one is where the young Forrest discovers that he can run. The background gets brighter, he pumps his arms furiously, and slowly, magically the bolts on his leg-braces explode, the struts fly off, his knees actually flex, and he is off in a cloud of dust. It makes you want to get up and run for joy.
The second scene is when Forrest wears his Crimson Tide uniform, tucks the ball under his arm and cuts across the football field for a touchdown. In that one dizzying minute-long montage, Zemeckis shows us the excitement, the joy and the exhilaration of being a college star.
The cinematography here is strong and evokes strongly a sense of each place and time. The fifties in the South are all white clapboard houses and wide green fields. A decade later, Forrest is running through fiery napalmed jungles, the Doors jangling loudly on the soundtrack. When he returns and marvels at the sunset off his shrimp-boat, the sky is a gorgeous medley of purple and orange. And when Forrest runs near Mirror Lake, the mountains behind reflect on the still waters with impossible beauty.
Hanks will probably be nominated again for an Oscar for his work here. There is a scene where he hears about his son. Mixed with his joy is the terrifying fear that his boy is slow too. His eyes tear up, his voice develops a hitch and he hesitatingly asks if his son is stupid like he is. It gives you a wrenching feeling inside.
When he first meets his son, he walks up to him timidly, crouches protectively over him and then sits down by his side to watch Sesame Street on television. The boy has his face away from us, and his head is cocked at a slight angle. There is a pause as Hanks arranges himself next to his son. Slowly, imperceptibly, he cocks his head at exactly the same angle.
There is a bittersweet love story in here too. Robin Wright never quite gets the essence of Jenny, though. She is traumatized as a child, and spends much of the movie rebelling and exploring different lifestyles. It is only at the end that you feel that she inhabits the character, and by then it is almost too late.
There are some very funny moments, and none are really contrived. In the coming days, you will see the advertisements describing this as a dramedy or as the feel-good movie of the summer. Restrain your natural impulse to gag, and go see it anyway. Forrest Gump, like life, is a box of chocolates.
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews