Forrest Gump

Movie: Forrest Gump (1994)

AFI List #71 on the 1998 list and 76 on the 2007 list

My List #40

Starring: Tom Hanks, Gary Senise, Robin Wright Penn

My rating: ˜˜˜˜

Okay, I don't feel that I need to go into much detail about this movie, I'm sure everyone has seen it quite a few times. Personally, I've seen the ending a lot more times than I've seen the beginning, and this was probably the first time that I've seen the entire thing since it first came out.

One of the main things that caught my attention this time was during Forrest's three year cross country run. He said as he was running "I'd think a lot. About mama, and Bubba, and Lt. Dan. But most of all I thought about Jenny. I thought about her a lot". And it made me think about us and our situations. The "average Joe" doesn't have the liberty to take three and half years to dream and evaluate our lives. We have to try to do all that while working, being social and being a contributing member of society. But then how much do we actually take the time we have to do that? Then at the end of his run he said that "My mama always said you have to put the past behind your before you can move on. And I think that's what my run was all about". How long does it take us to put our past behind us?

Tom Hanks said "Our destiny is only defined by how we deal with the chance elements to our life and that's kind of the embodiment of the feather as it comes in. Here is this thing that can land anywhere and that it lands at your feet." This movie to me was about an ordinary guy that made some simple decisions that had extraordinary results. Worth watching again.