Review of Forrest Gump

Back in 1995, my first reaction to Forrest Gump was very unfavourable. You see, I watched it on video after the Academy Awards in which it won best picture. At the time, I REALLY wanted Pulp Fiction to win. I was a rabid fan, and in my young mind any film that competed with my favourite movie had to be utter shit.

My criticisms of the film were quite scathing. I came up with this whole theory about how it is the perfect Dumbass American movie. The soft-hearted and soft-headed Forrest gump blunders through life and succeeds utterly. The message seemed to me to be, "Don't think very hard, follow your heart and you'll succeed." Kindly semi-retardation was being glorified as the ultimate American virtue. Yet, at that time in my life I loved Homer Simpson. Funny, that.



I was fully conscious of my old feelings as I turned on the DVD player, but I was willing to give the movie a chance. I'm glad I did. It turns out that Forrest Gump is a decent show.

I'm not saying that what I thought in 1995 wasn't correct on some level: there is a certain sector of American society that rejects contemplation and introspection, glorifying rushing through life roaring and knocking stuff over. However, I'm no longer certain that this is what Forrest Gump is about. Rather, Forrest's governing trait is selflessness.

Forrest loves those he cares about without concern for appearances and strikes out at those who harm them without fear of physical or social retribution. It makes him fearless. His selflessness is what allows him to float (like the feather at the beginning and end of the movie) from opportunity to opportunity without fear for losing what he has. Near the end of the movie, Forrest addresses this himself: "I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time." Something about this line strikes me not as dumb Americanism, but rather Taoism. Is the ultimate message of Forrest Gump to approach each moment in life with love and without fear?



One symbol in the movie still perplexes me: "Run, Forrest, run!" Running appears everywhere in the film. Forrest runs from rednecks chasing him in a truck. Does this mean that he runs from his problems? No, because he also runs back into the jungle to save fallen soldiers. So he runs to solve his problems? No, because near the end of the movie, after a particularily awful jilt from the love of his life, he runs across America several times and it gets him nowhere. Answers.com is equally unhelpful. In answer to the question "Why was Forrest running?", it says "Because he felt like it." This answer is unsatisfying unless viewed from a Zen perspective.

Again with the Eastern philosophy. Some may accuse me of reading too much into a dumb movie like this. Well, I know enough about screenwriting to say that most scripts are written by brainy people. Even Transformers had hidden moral messages.

So it appears that Forrest Gump is a complicated movie about a simple man. It is definitely worth watching again, although many scenes are marred by some awful product-placements and an overly sappy musical score.
4 Presidential audiences out of 5