Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump is exemplary All-American hokum. In an Oscar-wining performance Tom Hanks plays the eponymous protagonist, a good-hearted simpleton who lives with his mother (Sally Field) in Alabama and who loves the girl-next-door Jenny (played as an adult by Robin Wright). Forrest’s fabulous story covers a period of some thirty years, during which he realizes the American Dream not once but many times over.

Whilst on one level it may be justly charged with infantilism at best, bad faith at worst (Forrest’s assessment of his Vietnam tour of duty was that: "We took long walks and were always looking for this guy named Charlie") there is an undeniable appeal in Forrest’s indefatigable innocence as an antidote the cares of adulthood which afflict us less fortunate mortals cursed with standard issue IQs. With Hanks’ winning performance and Zemeckis’s smoothly unobtrusive direction it is crowd-pleasing entertainment that only a very large case of sour grapes will poison.

FYI: Although it is hard to imagine Forrest other than as played by Hanks, the role was offered to John Travolta who turned it down. 

 

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