Forrest Gump (1994)

"Forrest" (Tom Hanks) isn't the sharpest tool in the box, but he has an heart of gold and an unparalleled sense of human decency. These laudable characteristics are the result of an upbringing by his mother (Sally Field) which has seen him grow from the bullied young boy from Alabama who discovers that he can run a little faster than your average bear, to a sort of national hero. We learn all this from him as he sits at a bus stop chatting to an initially disinterested nurse, and then to a collection of fellow travellers who learn of his drafting to Vietnam. That's where he meets "Lt. Dan" (Gary Sinese) and his new best friend "Bubba" (Mykelti Williamson) and where his innate sense of what's right saves lives and earns him the plaudits of a grateful nation (and gets his butt-ox on television too!). His army days taught him much, but nothing so useful as a skill at table tennis. Soon on the American ping-pong squad in China, he manages to get an endorsement that allows him to reunite with the hippified, now paraplegic and disillusioned "Lt. Dan" and make a mint shrimp fishing, before returning home to face some fairly predicable family trauma. All of this has been happening against a story of a longing for his one true love. "Jenny" (Robin Wright). They've been friends since childhood, but she has a wandering spirit and though his love was requited, it wasn't what he needed. Might there be a future for them, ever? Robert Zemeckis uses a chronology of events in the USA, starting in the 1950s, to create a template for the story of a man who lived through racial tension, war, bullying and emerged the stronger; the more honourable and despite his low IQ was quite capable of putting those more intellectual around him to shame. The photography that cleverly superimposes him into television broadcasts works entertainingly as he gazes bemusedly out onto a audience that is increasingly warming to him. I will admit, I struggled a bit with the running segment towards the end, but Hanks epitomises determination and integrity with Eric Roth's adaptation of the Groom novel allowing plenty of philosophical food for thought whilst having a laugh at scenarios both serious and ridiculous. Like life itself, this film is like a box of chocolates and though I didn't love them all, there were plenty to enjoy and reflect upon.