Forrest Gump (Movie Review)

                                      Forrest Gump

                            (2 hrs & 21 min, color, 1994)

Absurdist comedy in motion pictures has been around now for quite some time.  When I think of this genre, my mind jumps immediately back to “Dr. Strangelove” and “The Graduate” and to the1960s in general, when it began to stake out a place for itself in the mainstream of even Hollywood product and has since become entrenched in the movie audience’s fertile field of familiarity.  There is a difference between absurdist comedy and screwball comedy.  The latter has been around ever since the 1930s.  A screwball comedy is humor that has not a single serious thought in its head – pure fun, tomfoolery, escape.  The absurdist, on the other hand, takes the drama of the real world very much to heart but tweaks it until it makes ridiculous sense.  The absurdist gives the world a chance to laugh profoundly at itself.  Absurdist humor, if it’s worth its salt, is also sobering.

The 1994 classic “Forrest Gump” is absurdism of a very high caliber.  It takes the late twentieth century just far enough out of the bounds of painstaking realism without undermining its basis in fact.  It does not make the world as we know it and have absorbed it disappear; it makes it stand on its head and shake off all allegiance to probability so that instead of its bare facts we get a slant upon its giddy and relevant truth.  

Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) is a deep south fellow with a pea-sized brain but with unheard of motor attributes and an innocent and trusting nature.  His life story through which we are conducted is as unlikely as any fictional adventure can get – unlikely, but likeable, yea, even loveable to many including myself.  In the course of the narrative, thanks to a loving but feisty mother (Sally Field), he goes from playground “idiot” as a child to college football star to Vietnam War valiant to industrial millionaire to loving father.  He turns out to be an effortless match for every crisis faced by the Baby Boomer generation.  Hanks is one of the very few actors who in my estimation are equal to giving him force and dimension and soul, and he does so superbly without compromising the characterization’s unusual premise.

While Gump is unspoiled by the onslaught of staggering world events, he finds that challenges of the heart are much more formidable.  One challenge is the bitterness he encounters from a lieutenant under whom he serves and whose life he saves in the midst of combat.  It seems the lieutenant loses both legs and resents Gump for depriving him of the honor of dying on the battlefield in the tradition of other fallen heroes in his family line.  Gary Sinise portrays him in realistic mode, becoming a kind of dramatic straight man to Gump’s outrageous innocence and comes to play a very vital part in the narrative.  Much of the absurdist comedy’s sobering effect derives from the stark contrast between the two figures.                  

The other challenge of the heart is the childhood sweetheart Jenny (Robin Wright) who weaves in and out of Forrest’s life and is slowly worn down by his good intentions and patience, before their relationship reaches a bitter sweet conclusion.  I will not say anything more about that or the relationship with the lieutenant for the benefit of those who have not seen this classic.  All I will say is that Forrest may not have much of an IQ, but he has a king-size heart, acquires a heap of common sense and gives pure pleasure as we  watch him wend his way.

There are some nitpickers who have accused the movie of glorifying brainlessness.  How so?  Does “Tobacco Road” glorify poverty and ignorance?  Does “Lord of the Flies” glorify juvenile malevolence?  Does “Young Frankenstein” glorify grave robbing?  What we have in “Forrest Gump” is a motion picture with a wide wingspread that encompasses a host of issues and emotional plateaus. The character of Gump is all of us denuded of our guile, sophistication, and self-possession.  His story gives us a kind of uncluttered window on the world we know, and he makes something disarmingly pure out of passive aggressiveness.

Robert Zemekis takes the directing honors.  Eric Roth wrote the cockeyed screenplay, derived from a novel by Winston Groom.  It won six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director and in the eighteen intervening years has never been out of circulation.

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net