Forrest Gump Movie Review

Forrest Gump Movie Review

             Although I’ve heard thousands of favorable comments about the movie Forrest Gump, I didn’t watch the movie until I took comparative film class this semester. When I first read the book, I couldn’t get what people call ‘dazzling impact’ of the plot. Maybe it was because the English book version was quite hard to read – a common phenomenon for those who hate reading books including me. Thus I didn’t expect much about the movie, as the plot I grasped through the book didn’t bring out much a particular empathy. (I’m not criticizing the book though. The plot itself was quite interesting in itself.)

However, as soon as I started watching the intro scene of the movie, I could feel the gravitating power of the prestigious movie of the century, and it became one of the most favorite movies of my life.

First of all, the plot of the movie itself was so captivating and empathetic. It was what people call a ‘human drama’ of life of a typical person going through a typical life story. Although some would argue that Forrest Gump was some kind of a genius as he was talented at athletics and military service skills, basically the social relationships and events around him don’t deviate from what we, real people, experience. Falling loyally in a love with a girl whom you had the first crush upon, finding out an unveiled talent of you by incident, having breakups and cracks with friends or girlfriend – all constitutes a life of a typical human. That was the core reason why this movie was able to approach the audience more deeply and sensationally, as we can breathe and feel the life of Forrest Gump as if we’re living in the movie – a maximization of substitute satisfaction that a movie can render to audience. For example, in the last scene Forrest say goodbye to his old girl friend Jenny, and talks how he had seen a lot of sunsets and wonderful sceneries in his life-long journey. Jenny says the last word, I love you, and she dies. It was the most tearful and impressive scene in the movie, as it deals with the deep meaning of life and the virtue of love between male and female, which basically are the two most important components of human life.

Secondly, it’s undeniable that Tom Hanks, who acted the Forrest Gump character, was indeed a genius. Loyal, sturdy, and persistence – these three words can best describe Forrest Gump, or Tom Hanks in the movie. Forrest Gump, can be characterized as a slow, dumb idiot but a loyal, athletically talented bulky person. Usually the movie critics and critique society comment how it’s a torturous and burdensome role for an actor to play a handicapped or intellectually problematic human being. However Hank’s interpretation and portrait of the Forrest Gump character was ingenious. His voice tone, slow pronunciation, walking style, facial expressions – all were just right and just impressive to render an image of the character fully to the audience. I especially liked the scene when Forrest felt as if a bee had bitten his butt in the life-threatening war scene at Vietnam, which was actually a bullet that stabbed through his flesh. In the last scene when Gump buries Jenny under the tree where their memory lie and tell her about the letter that his son wrote, Hanks allows the audience to sympathize with him through both the control and spurt of emotion with his tears. Frankly speaking, I cried too. Tom was a master of carrying out both humorous and emotional empathy to the audience. He was ‘the best’, ‘the most appropriate’ actor to play the role of Forrest Gump.

The movie was able to render me a sensation, emotion, sympathy, tear, and finally the inerasable impression in my mind forever. I still can’t forget the piano rendition of the theme music in the introduction and conclusion of the movie while I’m writing this review. A perfect harmony. All was perfect.

What is life? Forrest told me the answer – life is empathy, life is love, life is loyalty, life is faith. And, life is indeed, a drama, a movie that everyone becomes a protagonist.