Date of publication: 07/06/1994
By Roger Ebert
I've never met anyone like Forrest Gump in a movie before, and
for that matter I've never seen a movie quite like "Forrest Gump."
Any attempt to describe him will risk making the movie seem more
conventional than it is, but let me try. It's a comedy, I guess. Or
maybe a drama. Or a dream.
The screenplay by Eric Roth has the complexity of modern
fiction, not the formulas of modern movies. Its hero, played by Tom
Hanks, is a thoroughly decent man with an IQ of 75, who manages
between the 1950s and the 1980s to become involved in every major
event in American history. And he survives them all with only honesty
and niceness as his shields.
And yet this is not a heartwarming story about a mentally
retarded man. That cubbyhole is much too small and limiting for
Forrest Gump. The movie is more of a meditation on our times, as seen
through the eyes of a man who lacks cynicism and takes things for
exactly what they are. Watch him carefully and you will understand
why some people are criticized for being "too clever by half."
Forrest is clever by just exactly enough.
Tom Hanks may be the only actor who could have played the role.
I can't think of anyone else as Gump, after seeing how Hanks makes
him into a person so dignified, so straight-ahead. The per
formance is a breathtaking balancing act between comedy and sadness,
in a story rich in big laughs and quiet truths.
Forrest is born to an Alabama boardinghouse owner (Sally Field)
who tries to correct his posture by making him wear braces, but who
never criticizes his mind. When Forrest is called "stupid," his
mother tells him, "Stupid is as stupid does," and Forrest turns out
to be incapable of doing anything less than profound. Also, when the
braces finally fall from his legs, it turns out he can run like the
wind.
That's how he gets a college football scholarship, in a life story that
eventually becomes a running gag about his good luck. Gump the football
hero becomes Gump the Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam, and then Gump the
Ping-Pong champion, Gump the shrimp boat captain, Gump the millionaire
stockholder (he gets shares in a new "fruit company" named Apple Computer),
and Gump the man who runs across America and then retraces his steps.
It could be argued that with his IQ of 75 Forrest does not quite understand
everything that happens to him. Not so. He understands everything he needs
to know, and the rest, the movie suggests, is just surplus. He even
understands everything that's important about love, although Jenny, the
girl he falls in love with in grade school and never falls out of love
with, tells him, "Forrest, you don't know what love is." She is a stripper
by that time.
The movie is ingenious in taking Forrest on his tour of recent American
history. The director, Robert Zemeckis, is experienced with the magic that
special effects can do (his credits include the "Back to the Future" movies
and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"), and here he uses computerized visual
legerdemain to place Gump in historic situations with actual people.
Forrest stands next to the schoolhouse door with George Wallace, he teaches
Elvis how to swivel his hips, he visits the White House three times, he's
on the Dick Cavett show with John Lennon, and in a sequence that will have
you rubbing your eyes with its realism, he addresses a Vietnam-era peace
rally on the Mall in Washington. Special effects are also used in creating
the character of Forrest's Vietnam friend Lt. Dan (Gary Sinise), a Ron
Kovic type who quite convincingly loses his legs.
Using carefully selected TV clips and dubbed voices, Zemeckis is able to
create some hilarious moments, as when LBJ examines the wound in what
Forrest describes as "my butt-ox." And the biggest laugh in the movie comes
after Nixon inquires where Forrest is staying in Washington, and then
recommends the Watergate. (That's not the laugh, just the setup.)
As Forrest's life becomes a guided tour of straight-arrow America, Jenny
(played by Robin Wright) goes on a parallel tour of the counterculture. She
goes to California, of course, and drops out, tunes in, and turns on. She's
into psychedelics and flower power, antiwar rallies and love-ins, drugs and
needles. Eventually it becomes clear that between them Forrest and Jenny
have covered all of the landmarks of our recent cultural history, and the
accommodation they arrive at in the end is like a dream of reconciliation
for our society. What a magical movie.
Forrest Gump (STAR) (STAR) (STAR) (STAR) Forrest Gump Tom Hanks Jenny Curran Robin Wright Lt. Dan Gary Sinise Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Running time: 135 minutes. Classified PG-13 (for drug content, sensuality and war violence). Opening today at local theaters.
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