📽 FORREST GUMP [Robert Zemeckis, 1994] - Movie review by Mandibil

I saw this movie in the theaters 22 years ago and I clearly remember a feeling of something new and fresh. It is based on a book and as far as I know the plot has been simplified somewhat in comparison. But the main stories are clear and strong and there is even some underlying themes that are not so easy to spot and add to that some brilliantly created "appearances" and funny references.

Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) lives in Alabama as the slightly retarded son of a single mother (Sally Field) who supports him as best she can, while still pulling a white lie now and then to cover up the deeper aspects of both his future and her past. His mothers life philosophy is condensed into a box of chocolates. "You never know what you will get". Forrest is hurled into the world when his mother gives him the opportunity to start in school by sleeping with the school headmaster.

The plot is impossible in reality so it is meant to be a metaphor or an analogy. Despite Forrest´s low IQ, he constantly ends up in historically important situations through post war America between 1955 and 1985. He inspires the unknown Elvis Presley´s pelvis movements. His running skills gets him through university as a football hero and then into the army. Later he becomes a shrimp boat owner and ends up making a fortune. He unknowingly is responsible for leaking the Watergate break in´s and ends up speaking at an anti Vietnam rally and so on. Everything seems to happen by coincidence.

He has a life long friend in Jenny (Robin Wright) who he is in love with but never really returns his love. He constantly ends up trying to make her safe and support or defend her, but she keeps getting into more and more shit as time goes. His mother gets sick with cancer and dies quite early on. She keeps telling him soothing white lies until the end and he inherits her southern mansion that feels like a fairy tale from years long gone. Forrest is very deeply rooted in that house and the place he was born. He constantly tries to get Jenny to go back there. But Jenny is running away, running from the emotional damage the sexual abuse her widowed father put her through as a child.

The world around him seems to constantly pull him in to tell him "see what is going on, react to it, take a stand". But Gump is like a ball in a pinball machine. He keeps bouncing of the people and arbitrary situations that suddenly creates enormous changes in his social and physical surroundings. But Gump stays the same, he does not even seem to get older. He is constantly getting rewarded by his leaders who wants to give him medals and the like, but he seems to care more about sodas or food at the receptions.

He does make friends wit ha few people he meets along the way, who are not judging him for his "intelligence" but for his lack of judgement of others. Forrest has no tools for telling good guys and bad guys apart and he might as well end up in a very bad situation one moment or just as well in a situation where he becomes the hero of the nation the next. Forrest is a placeholder for the average conscience of the average american citizen in relation to the "collective" conscience. And then it is also a comment on the notion of destiny, both individual and as a collective.

Gump is an analogy of the state of men as conscious citizen in the world. Men are being manipulated by their single mothers, who tell them lies about heir fathers and cover up their own responsibilities and their use of sexuality to get what they want. Society ridicules him for not being manly enough, shown by how is is deliberately crippled by his gynocentric mother and is only able to break free when he is forced to trust his own physical strength, fleeing bullying, low life males.

His girlfriend is unable to use him as nothing more than an emotional tampon, when she has run herself into the ground and needs some last resort to get on foot again. Forrest keeps loving her no matter how stupidly she behaves or how many cheating crappy alfa male wannabe´s she gets beaten up by, constantly re-experiencing her fathers abuse. What does it take for him to realize that she is a shitty no good woman? He stays in his fairy tale bubble that womanhood "must" be perfect despite everything they do to him. She even spermjacks him and gives birth to his son without telling him until years later. He still cannot put a woman on the charge of moral corruption.

All the while the same tale of government and authority is told when a string of presidents and celebrities are assassinated. It is the same story that he is supposed to be reminded of. But he ignores it. Wake up, wake up it says, but he chooses again and again to live in his fantasy world and let the world kick him around in stead of taking charge of it and see the world and its evil corruption as it really is.

Forrest Gump is a rare movie in the way it has been so masterfully crafted. The plot, despite its weirdness, never becomes boring, in fact it is completely entertaining and repeatedly surprising. The level of the cinematography is very high and some scenes feels like they could have been made yesterday so realistic and handsome are they. Tom Hanks does a classic and unforgettable job withe Gump and the supporting cast is also near perfect. I particularly like Gary Sinise´s lieutenant Dan. He is just awesome and how they did the amputated legs, i do not know. it is quite impossible to put a finger on anything Zemeckis does in this movie, I only feel that the gimmicks and the plot gets a bit silly at times and the development of Jenny and Dan are too fragmented, but these are small concerns. A very recommendable movie.

Rating: 9/10