Forrest Gump (1994) — Critical Summary
Director By Robert Zemeckis (American Film)
Critical Summary
We see a white feather flying in the air below the bus stop in Savannah, Georgia. Sitting at the bus stop is a heroic character, Forrest Gump, a smart but kind man wearing dirty sneakers. He takes a feather and puts it in a book in his suitcase. On her lap is a box of chocolates, and when the bus arrives, a woman comes and sits next to her. He introduces himself as Forrest Gump and gives him chocolate, but she ignores him.
“My mother always said that life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’ll find,” Gump said. he also comments on her shoes and how they should be comfortable and tells her that her mother always says that one can tell a lot about her shoes. “I’m wearing a lot of shoes,” he said before starting a story about his first shoes. We see a child named Forrest looking down at his legs at the doctor’s office. She wears leg braces to help straighten her bent spine and wanders around the doctor’s office badly. Forest’s mother told him that “Don’t let anyone tell you he’s better than you, Forrest.” Then the scene shifts to the school principal telling Mrs. Gump that Forrest is “different,” his IQ is below the required level, and he refused to admit the Forest in his school. Mrs. Gump does not accept this and insists the principal admit the Forrest in his public schools.
We see Forrest get on the bus on the first day of school. The bus driver is a young woman holding a cigarette in her mouth, introducing herself at Forrest as “Dorothy Harris.” Forrest goes up but doesn’t get a seat. “You can stay here if you like,” said the little girl. In a voiceover, Forrest says, “I’ve never seen such a beautiful person in all my life.” He was like an angel. Forrest starts talking to the girl, whose name is Jenny. After some days, the two become
good friends, she teaches him how to read, and she teaches him how to swipe at the branches of a tree. One day when some boys ride their bikes towards the Forest, and Jenny shouts, “Run, Forrest, run! Forrest begins to accelerate, and the braces burst off of his legs, and finally, from that day forward, Forrest never seemed like a disabled boy.
Forrest tells us that Jenny’s mother died at the age of 5, and her father was a farmer, but her father always tries to kiss Jenny in the wrong manner, which means that her father tried to molest her. Now, after some years, they both have grown up, and one day again, those boys throw a stone at Forrest’s head, as in his childhood, and the car stops to chase him. Jenny tells him to run again, and he does, running along a dirt road. Somehow, he managed to speed up the car and jumped over the fence. Suddenly, he ran on the football field during the game, and the coaches looked upon him, impressed by his speed. “He may be the stupidest boy I’ve ever seen, but he’s sure he’s fast,” the coach said.
The scene shift to the present, and Forrest’s bench partner should get on his bus. A woman and her young son take the place of the woman who gets on the bus, and Forrest continues his story. The scene shifts lower back to the past; one day, Jenny tells Forrest that she wants to be a well-known singer like Joan Baez. Forrest was rankings very well at a football game, and as a result of
which we see that Forrest Gump meeting president Kennedy with the
all-American team.
We then see that Forrest is graduating from college and posing for a photograph together with his mom, who’s beaming with pride. At the same time, a navy recruiter walks to Forrest and gives him a pamphlet about joining the navy. Then, Forrest went to an army bus motive force, who yells at him, “Nobody gives a hunk of shit who you are, fuzzball!”. Forrest attempts to discover a seat. However, nobody allows him to sit down until a black guy in a tan fit invites Forrest to sit down near to him. He introduces himself as Benjamin Buford; however, he says that everyone calls him “bubba.” — “ I realize the whole thing there is to recognize approximately the shrimping business,” Bubba says. Then we see Bubba and Forrest doing numerous chores in boot camp; at nighttime, Forrest becomes lonely in his bunk. All of a sudden, one soldier gives Forrest a “playboy magazine.” When he opens it, he found jenny in a spread titled “women of the south.” she is nude in her school sweater, and Forrest narrates that the unfold were given jenny kicked out of college. The next day Forrest catches a bus to Memphis to see jenny singing in the bar show that chance was offered to her after she posed for playboy.
The announcer introduces Jenny, and Forrest smiles at her overall performance in voiceover; he narrates, “her dream had finally come true.” She becomes a folk singer. After that, he tells her he loves her; however, she insists, “you do not know what love is.” as a car drives up, she stops it and gets inside it, telling Forrest to live away from her. Before she gets inside the car, Forrest tells jenny that he is going to Vietnam, and then Jenny tells him that if he is ever in hassle, he won’t try to be brave, just run away from there.
Forrest travels to Vietnam with the military buddies. He and bubba stroll toward a tent wherein their lieutenant, dan Taylor, is standing. On another side, Bubba asks Forrest, “how would you want to go into the shrimping enterprise with me?” and Forrest concurs. We see Forrest writing letters to jenny almost every day. Interspersed, we see jenny, with lengthy hippie hair, living a different life with some different hippies — tomorrow during the sunrises, enemy attacks with bombs and ICTs on American forces. Inside the chaos, lieutenant dan and Bubba both instruct Forrest to run away, which he does. But he abruptly realizes he left Bubba in the back of and goes returned to look for him. Within the middle of seeking out Bubba, he found another soldier lying on the ground and carries him over his shoulder. He incorporates him away from the hazard, laying him at the ground subsequent to a small pond. When he is going returned, he found a number of his other fellow soldiers in need of help, and then he takes them near the pond.
Forrest goes again into the jungle to find Bubba and trips over lieutenant dan, who’s at the radio talking about the deaths in his platoon. Forrest selections up lieutenant dan, as dan resists. Against dan’s orders, Forrest goes back to locate bubba, who is dead on the ground, preserving a leaf over a terrible wound. Bubba.” bubba tells Forrest, “I want to move home,” and dies.” The scene shifts to the existing, with Forrest sitting on the bench at the bus stop and telling the tale of Bubba’s dying. When the scene shifts to the hospital, we see that dan has lost both his legs, and at the same time, Forrest found a massive stack of mail, but it’s the far reply to all of the letters Forrest sent to jenny. Later, within the pastime room, any other wounded soldier teaches Forrest how to play ping pong. Forrest takes to the sport right now, playing impressively for the other soldiers. One night time, lieutenant dan confronts Forrest, approximately saving him. He tells Forrest that he did not need to live, “I had a destiny,” he snarls at Forrest, “I used to be speculated to die within the field, with honor!” he starts off evolved to cry, earlier than laying his head on Forrest’s chest.
We see president Johnson Kneddy offering Forrest a medal of honor. Afte r he receives the medal, Forrest is going out to look at Washington d.C., in which he suddenly pulled onto a bus full of activists seeking out veterans who’re in opposition to the warfare in Vietnam. Suddenly, Forrest was pulled upstage
in front of the protestors.
After his speech, Forrest hears someone calling his name and sees that she was Jenny running towards him, after which the crowd cheers for them. However, Jenny introduces Forrest to her boyfriend; Wesley jenny tells Forrest that she and Wesley live collectively in Berkeley. Forest tells her that he wanted to be her boyfriend; however, she tells him that they both have different paths. The scene shifts to a crowd at a military hospital accumulated around to watch how nicely Forrest is playing ping pong, then the military decides to feature Forrest in the all-American ping pong Team. he tells his bench mate, and we see him playing in China and prevailing. We see Forrest Gump emerge as a celeb player and acting at the dick Cavetti show; when he comes out of the studio, lieutenant dan, dan, and Forrest go to a bar on new year’s, wherein Forrest tells him that he has to shop for a shrimping boat due to the fact he promised bubba he could. “now that he’s useless, that means I gotta be the captain,” Forrest says, and suddenly dan laughs and tells him that if he ever becomes a shrimp boat captain, he may be his first mate. While Forrest receives discharged from the army, he is going home to Alabama. There, his mom welcomes him and tells him that someone provided $25,000 for their ping pong paddle sponsorship.
Forrest speaks to Bubba’s grave and tells him that he will use these $25,000 to purchase a shrimp boat. Then we see Forrest as captain of his shrimping boat, but shrimping is harder than he expected. On the other side, we see jenny at a disc, snorting cocaine off the table and injecting heroin. Forrest sees lieutenant dan, who reminds Forrest that he said he would be his first mate. Forrest and dan grow to be shrimpers together; later, after some time, they turn out to be the most a hit shrimping enterprise in town.
Lieutenant dan and Forrest at the shrimp boat. Dan, thank you, Forrest, for saving his life. All of a sudden, Forrest receives news that his mom is ill; he rushes domestic to see his mother, who’s in bed, and tells Forrest she’s the patient of cancer and then tells him, “My destiny was to become your mama.” Forrest asks her then what his destiny is. However, she tells him that he has to figure it out for himself. On another side, Dan invests their money in the Apple Computer stock, which does very well, and sends Forrest checks in the mail. Forrest sends his money to Bubba’s mother. One day, Jenny suddenly arrives at Forrest’s house. He runs towards her, and they both hug each other. She stays with Forrest for some time, “I did all the talking,” Forrest narrates by sitting on the bench. The next morning, Jenny suddenly leaves the place without saying goodbye to Forrest. When Forrest found that Jenny was not there, his heart was broken, and then he decided to run until and unless
he will get Jenny. Forrest started running all over America, such that the news reporters begin to report on Forrest, and Jenny sees him on television at her waitressing job.
“ Why are you doing this?” a news reporter asks Forrest, and he replies, “I just felt like running.” After three years, Forrest stops, turns to his followers, and says, “I’m pretty tired. “Now I’ll go my home “ one day, Forrest gets a letter from Jenny, then he went there; Jenny turns and introduces Forrest to the little boy, telling him that he is the father and that the boy is named after him. Forrest was shocked silent and gets very worried that his son is stupid like him. “He’s very smart.” Now, Jenny tells Forrest that she’s is not well. “I have some kind of virus, and the doctors don’t know what it is, and there isn’t anything they can do about it,” she says to Forrest. She asks Forrest to marry her. Finally, Forrest and Jenny getting married, Lieutenant Dan also arrives, now with prosthetic legs. Due to the heavy waves of cancer, Jenny dies, and Forrest buries her under a tree.
One day, Forrest addresses Jenny’s grave and tells her that Forrest Jr. is starting school soon. “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 think maybe it’s both. Maybe both are happening at the same time, but I miss you, Jenny,” Forrest says. Forrest drops Forrest Jr. off at the bus for the first day of school. He gives Forrest Jr. Curious George, his favorite book, to bring into school. As little Forrest gets on the bus, Forrest tells him and tells him that he loves him.
