Forrest Gump

For me, it’s in the same weight category as the favored The Shawshank Redemption. The film is brilliantly designed to grab you by your soul. It is a film with well-hidden manipulation and cheap gestures, which at first glance completely disappear in a refined game with the audience's emotions. The well-arranged narrative, which is licked like a good ice cream, is pleasantly sweet and smells like strawberries. But like any ice cream, it's more of a tasty dessert. True, Zemeckis and Hanks are master confectioners, and Forrest is a spoiled dessert in every way. With its readability, well-created illusion of intimacy and nicely wrapped thought structure, Forrest Gump is simply a treat for the masses. But I simply prefer the main film courses, and that is why this touching sweetness is only a four-star affair. In a Hollywood feature film, however, the story of a lame boy who goes through modern American history with the ease and foresight of a genius idiot is a truly rare phenomenon that will stick in your memories for a long time. But for me it will never be as intense as it was when I first watched it as a boy... (11/27/2006)

Robert Zemeckis' masterpiece, an American variation of how a simpleton stumbled upon happiness without any effort of his own. A comedic journey through the history of modern America, where the main character, an innocent guy with a disability, traverses life and encounters famous figures from American history, even inadvertently playing a role in events like the Watergate scandal. Excellent casting, with situational and verbal humor. Americans love happy endings, but Zemeckis parodies the idea of effortlessly achieved happiness so much through his character that the whole film ends up feeling like a mockery of the traditional American way of life and the American dream. Tom Hanks excels in the lead role. Overall impression: 95%. (06/16/2006)

I could write almost the same thing for this film as I did for Pulp Fiction. When it premiered, I was studying in České Budějovice and I couldn't miss the screening in the local cinema, especially after reading the enthusiastic review in Cinema (at that time, under the guidance of Iva Hejlíčková, it was still worth something). There were about twenty of us in the cinema, and at the end there was a chorus of sniffling, accompanied by wiping tears on handkerchiefs. And what happened next? Then, full of enthusiasm, I recommended Forrest Gump to all my friends and acquaintances at the uni, and it’s admirable how word of mouth worked at a time when there was no internet (and mobile phones were the size of a small suitcase and owned only by a select few). Five days later, on the day before the last screening, I wanted to repeat the experience and I was unlucky – it was sold out! Back then, premieres and films in general were screened only for a week, unlike today's multiplexes, but with Forrest Gump they made an exception and extended the screenings for another week and almost all the screenings were full. As far as I know, Forrest continued to fill cinemas across the country for at least another year and a half after its premiere. You know, back then it you couldn't download a hideous screen-rip from the internet, you had go to the cinema for the experience. (02/03/2014)

Coincidentally, I just now saw Forrest Gump after a long time, two days after Bertolucci's The Conformist. And so I found connections between those films that I’m guessing no one who considers Zemeckis' opus a testament to the simple beauty of life, love, and everything would ever want to hear about. And since I'm still fascinated by the director's visual perfectionism, mise-en-scène, and choreography, which he was able to employ here thanks to an episodic structure tracing major turning points in American history, I had to look for ways to defend the film, because it really is terribly well made. (Note: on the first day after vaccination, I observed my brain's increasing natural resistance to writing sentences shorter than two run-on sentences, I'll continue to monitor that). Not knowing the Groom source material, the film then offered me a new reading, and that of the idiocy of 20th century American history. A century that punishes anyone who chooses to have a role in it (or idea, see the return to The Conformist) yet rewards the simpletons who can't or won't grasp its elusiveness, randomness, and complexity, and just follow the curriculum laid out by their (by no means sophisticated) mentors (Mother, Jenny, Lieutenant Dan). Thus they create a picture of a chaotic history in which a simpleton lives happily, resigned in their understanding by definition, and they reward him with a girl he loves and is unable to recognize that she is just coming to him for rehab or when her kid is at risk of going to the orphanage. (06/08/2021)

What should I write in a review of a film that hasn’t already been said a thousand times? In short, if you walk down the street and ask a hundred random people about the best movie of their lives, the most common answer will be Forrest Gump. A masterpiece in the history of cinema, funny, depressing, impressive, inspiring, with impeccable direction and performances that leave you amazed. I have a bit more distinctive film exhibitions in my top list, but this beauty still has a privileged and unshakable position in my heart... (04/18/2011)