Forrest Gump is the best example of the perfect movie. 6 “Oscars”, earned by the picture, may well prove this. And their film deserved not for the support of “non-traditional values” and the use of different national groups of actors, but for a really touching story and its amazing visualization. It is difficult to find even one moment in Forrest Gump that is not worthy of the highest praise. That is why such films need to be watched, analyzed, enjoyed and sincerely cried. If you are not familiar with it, then be sure to look, and then in this article you will be able to get acquainted with the meaning of the plot and the ending. Not that they were very hidden from the audience, but still.
What is the movie “Forrest Gump” about?
A man sits at a bus stop in the middle of a city street. Next to him is a briefcase, on his knees is a box of chocolates. When the bus comes, he does not go anywhere, but just sits and looks ahead. When a woman sits next to him, he speaks to her: “I’m Forrest Gump. Do you want candy? I can eat one and a half million of them. My mom always said that life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what the toppings will come across. Then he begins to tell the story of his life.
Forrest lived with his mother at their family estate in Greenbow. To support her son, the woman began to rent empty rooms in the house. The boy had problems with his legs and mentality, but his mother never allowed Forrest to think that he was somehow different from the others. She believed in her son and wanted him to study among ordinary children, to live like everyone else. Once, his clumsy gait inspired even Elvis Presley, who stayed at their house. Later, this gait became a “chip” of the pop king of the scene.
At school, the boy had a hard time. The children mocked him, called him a fool and laughed. The only one who began to communicate with him was the girl Jenny. They spent all their free time together, retelling the contents of their favorite books, learning from each other various everyday trifles. And one day, running away from hooligans, Forrest suddenly felt great strength in his legs. To Jenny’s cries of “Run, Forrest, run!” he rushed forward and for the first time felt a surge of real freedom.
After attending high school and graduating from college, Forrest was drafted into the army. There he met Bubba, a dark-skinned shrimp fisherman, and Lieutenant Dan. Bubba was as eccentric as Forrest himself, he constantly talked about catching shrimp and took a word from a friend that after the war they would go fishing together. But during a special operation in Vietnam, Bubba died. Lieutenant Dan, having fallen under the bombing, also almost lost his life, but Forrest carried him out of the fire.
At the military hospital, he again met with Lieutenant Dan. His legs were amputated. Dan lost heart, cursed everything in the world. He accused Forerst of not letting him die a hero. In order not to get bored in the hospital, Forrest learned to play table tennis. He did it so masterfully that he was even accepted into the national team. Forrest Gump became a celebrity. He was once paid a huge sum of money for describing tennis rackets in a commercial. And then Forrest decided to fulfill the dream of a deceased friend.
He bought a schooner for catching shrimp and went fishing, when suddenly Lieutenant Dan came to him. Together they began to go to sea, but the fishing was not successful. One day after a devastating hurricane, all the fishing schooners in the area were destroyed, only Forrest’s ship survived. In a short time, having no competitors, he and Dan became “shrimp kings” and millionaires. Suddenly, Forrest’s mom got cancer and died. After burying her, he gave away part of the money to charity, and transferred half of the proceeds to Bubba’s mother.
One day, Jenny actually appeared on the lawn right in front of an astonished Forrest. She came to him to stay. It was the happiest time for the main character when he and Jenny were together. But when Forrest asked Jenny to marry him, she refused. They spent the night together, and the next morning Jenny left again. Forrest fell into despair and, going out into the street, suddenly felt an irresistible desire to run. And he ran.
Forrest Gump ran for more than three years, crossing the United States several times up and down. He didn’t have a specific goal, he just did what his heart told him to do. And then he just got tired and went home. One day he received a letter from Jenny, in which she asked him to come to her in Savannah. When they met again, Jenny confessed to Forrest that he had a son. And his name is also Forrest. She also said that she was terminally ill with an unknown disease (obviously, we are talking about AIDS, which then the doctors had just begun to talk about).
“Forrest Gump” plot explained
In addition to a purely American historical context, the film “Forrest Gump” raises ordinary human problems. In the beginning, this is the upbringing of a child with mental disabilities by a single mother. Then the topic of teaching children with developmental disabilities in a regular school. This is followed by moments close to everyone, such as first love, a serious illness, the death of loved ones.
The essence of the film “Forrest Gump” is that it shows a protest against generally accepted standards – “psychos have no place among ordinary people”, “everyone must become successful in life”, “happiness must be pulled out of fate with teeth.” Forrest, despite the difficulties surrounding him, does not become angry, does not try to go over the heads and prove something to someone. He remained a sincere, faithful friend, a loving son, just a good person.
The light feather that appears at the beginning and end of the film is a metaphor. The protagonist “flew” through all the key events in the history of the United States and could even influence them, remaining invisible. At the same time, the author wanted to show that Forrest himself, like this light feather, simply surrenders to the breath of the wind.
He does not dwell on problems, does not judge anyone and does not prove anything to anyone. He simply lives, but this is precisely the deep hidden meaning of the existence of every person on earth.
What book is the movie based on?
The film is based on Winston Groom’s 1986 novel Forrest Gump. But the picture has gone quite far from the original novel. Forrest is described in the book as a cynic and a difficult character. The main line of the film: “Life is like a box of chocolates” contradicts the words from the book “Being an idiot is not a box of chocolates”. And yet the general events from the life of the protagonist were preserved.
Is the movie based on real events?
No, the hero himself does not have a specific prototype in real life. His features are rather taken from many case histories of people with convulsive-impulsive mental disorders. But the scene with the Forrest Gump race is really based on real events. Luis Michael Figueroa ran from New Jersey to San Francisco in 1982. So he decided to support the Cancer Society. It was he who said: “I just put one foot in front of the other,” which was then transferred to the film.
The ceremony with the awarding of the Medal of Honor was also real. True, they handed it, of course, not to Forrest Gump, but to Sammy L. Davis. The ceremony took place on November 19, 1968, and was presented by US Vice President Lyndon Johnson. In the frame, the head of Tom Hanks was “attached” to the body of Davis using modern technology. As a result, the footage turned out to be very convincing.
Why did Jenny leave the house?
Jenny has been unhappy since childhood. Being abused by her alcoholic father, she left home more than once and hid in the field to pray. She later carried the same avoidance tactic into her relationship with Forrest. Each time, appearing in his life, she left without explanation, and disappeared for several years. Most likely, she loved Forrest and understood that with her presence she would ruin his life, destroy his pure, bright nature.
The last time she returned to the main character, when she had nowhere to go. The explanation is simple – her task was to transfer her son to him so that the boy would be in good hands. Jenny understood that she was dying, and therefore did not run away again, because her earthly wanderings were already over. One day, approaching her old house, she began to throw stones at it and shout: “How could you do this to me?!”. Obviously, these words were addressed to her father. It was with his bullying that Jenny’s troubles began, turning her whole life upside down.
How were the scenes with the legless lieutenant filmed?
According to the plot, the legs of the hero Gary Sinise were amputated. To make everything look believable in the frame, they were wrapped in a special cloth and then erased on the computer. But an attentive viewer will notice in some episodes how Lieutenant Den focuses on legs that are not there. The hero’s wheelchair was equipped with a system of mirrors. This trick is used by magicians to “remove” some parts of the body of the person sitting in it.
“Forrest Gump” ending explained
Forrest’s life is a kind of protest against conventional wisdom. A man is successful in absolutely everything, although he suffers from a disease that slows down his development. How many “normal” people were around Forrest, but none were even close to worthy of him. Everyone admired him, respected him, but no one could get close to his ideal.
And in the last scene, we understand that he will be an amazing father to his son. He will make him a truly worthy person who will not dishonor his father’s reputation. It is a pity that many do not understand that illness is not a sentence. And Forrest was able to prove it to billions of people around the world!
The film “Forrest Gump” could become a real classic of really good cinema. Every scene, every detail in the frame was thought out. That is why we fully get used to the role of Forrest, we feel his strength and independence. It becomes dear to us and very close. Hence the sincere feeling. If you haven’t seen this movie, definitely check it out! He’s definitely worth it.
I hope I have helped you to find the meaning of the movie “Forrest Gump”, as well as understand its ending. If you have a different vision of the film, write your version in the comments.
Facts about the movie “Forrest Gump”
- Everyone knows that Forrest Gump is an adaptation of the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. But much less well known is the fact that in the wake of the success of the film, Groom wrote a sequel to this book – Forrest Gump and Co. (1995) – about the adventures of Gump in the eighties. The book did not win success, readers found it too labored and stupid. Nevertheless, there have been talks about its adaptation for a long time. Moreover, it was announced that the nineties will also be shown, and Forrest will even meet Tom Hanks on the screen , just like in the book!
- Forrest – the main character of the film and especially the novel – is the bearer of the so-called savant syndrome, sometimes this condition is called savantism . A rare but real anomaly, when a mentally retarded person has flashes of genius in one of the areas. Usually it is drawing, music, mathematics or a phenomenal memory. In articles and TV shows, they like to remember, in particular, Stephen Wiltshire, a black Briton who was once organized to fly a helicopter over London, after which he accurately drew a detailed panorama of the city from memory. Later, he repeatedly repeated this trick in Tokyo, New York, and Hong Kong (see picture). History also remembers an American named Kim Peak, a macrocephalic who remembered 98% of the information he read and became the prototype for the hero of the movie Rain Man.
- Traditional entertainment for film encyclopedists is to imagine what the film could have become if the original plans of the studio had been realized. In the case of Forrest Gump, this means directing Terry Gilliam (he was the first candidate) or Barry Sonnenfeld (the second candidate, who, by the way, managed to work pretty hard on the project). Finally, Forrest himself could be portrayed by Bill Murray, Chevy Chase or John Travolta, who were the main contenders for the role until Sonnenfeld got his hands on Tom Hanks. Hanks had just won an Oscar for a gay man dying of AIDS in Philadelphia, so he was a hot guy in terms of the movie business. By the way, the actress Sally Field, who played Mrs. Gump, had more titles at that time than Hanks: as many as two Oscars for the dramas Norma Rae and Places in the Heart. In addition, she has already run into Hanks in The Punchline and plays Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man.
- With a production budget of $55 million, the movie grossed a staggering $678 million at the box office! Nevertheless, the studio stated and provided the relevant papers that the project was unprofitable. Most likely, this is a fraud typical of Hollywood sharks, when the film company drains all the profits from the film to mysterious intermediaries in order not to pay the actors, screenwriters and other contractors a percentage of the profits. Actually, to this day, this is the main reason for lawsuits, as in the sensational case with Peter Jackson and the actors of The Lord of the Rings, from whom the film company stubbornly hid a huge profit. Forrest Gump was one of the highest-grossing films of all time for many years. However, at the moment he has already dropped out of them, since the film business has now changed beyond recognition and even films that collect a billion dollars do not surprise anyone in our time. Nevertheless, in special ratings, compiled taking into account dollar inflation, Forrest is now in 26th position, immediately after The Godfather.
- The film proved to be a long-liver also because it has the ability to discover new details with each viewing. Have you noticed that as soon as Forrest first appears on the screen at a new age, every time he debuts in a blue check shirt. In addition, he constantly buttoned his shirt with all the buttons, and after Jenny’s death, he began to leave the top button unbuttoned. And in all the photos of Gump with his eyes closed. It is also easy to see that John Lennon in the film communicates almost exclusively with quotes from the Imagine song. Well, where without blunders? Attentive viewers have discovered that when Forrest says “You died on Saturday” at Jenny’s grave, he is clearly delusional. Because the date of death (March 22, 1982) in our reality is the most Monday.
- Forrest’s shrimp business materialized in our world after the film. Bubba Gump has grown into a chain of themed restaurants in 33 locations around the world, including the US, China, Japan, Britain, and so on. The first of them earned in 1996 in California. Of course, the menu is dominated by shrimp dishes: shrimp can be found there in sandwiches, salads, appetizers and soups. In alcoholic cocktails (we studied the menu on the official website) there seems to be no shrimp , but we would check with the waiter just in case.
- The guest star of the series “Santa Barbara” – actress Robin Wright, while working on the scene in the club, showed genuine miracles of acting heroism, for she was filmed naked. She was pounding from the cold, and indeed she caught a cold, but at the same time she continued to sing and play without interruption for the entire 24 hours that the episode was filmed! Taking into account the fact that the only element of clothing was a guitar, the fact that the guitar warms very poorly was recognized as sad. But the actress was rewarded in full for her exploits: she made an excellent career and, among other things, became the main decoration of the House of Cards series.
- Jenny’s unexpected death is largely unexplained in the film, with most viewers assuming it’s about AIDS. But already after the release of the picture, Winston Groom in the book-sequel “Forrest Gump and K” mentions hepatitis C as the cause of that trouble. This has its own internal logic. First, it is a disease characteristic of those who were addicted to drugs in the early seventies. And secondly, until 1989, hepatitis C was not diagnosed, which is why Jenny says that doctors cannot understand what kind of virus she caught and how to treat it.
