"Life is like a box of chocolate. You never know what you are going to get."

Rating: 10/10 (14 May 2012)

Forrest Gump (1994) Director – Robert Zemeckis Cinematographer – Don Burgess Writer – Winston Groom Editor – Arthur Schmidt
Favorite Quote – "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get."
Forrest Gump is a great modern day fable. A fable in the dictionary is defined as a brief fictitious story that teaches a moral. It's a very compilation of innocence, honesty and love. Forrest Gump (protagonist), named after a civil war hero, grows up in Greenbow, Alabama, where his mother runs a boarding house. Although Forrest is a slow learner, his mental impairment doesn't seem to bother him, his mother or his best friend. During the next thirty years, Forrest becomes a star football player, a war hero, a successful businessman and something of a pop icon. Through it all, however, there is one defining element in his life: His love for Jenny. She is never far from his thoughts, no matter what he's doing or where he is.
A trio of assets lifts Forrest Gump above the average "life story" drama, its optimism, freshness and emotional honesty. After graduating, Forrest enlisted in army and was sent to Vietnam. He has a very particular singular viewpoint on his time spent there which shows the essence of the title character's nature. Forrest Gump has several messages with several decades in the life of Forrest Gump, some of which are less obvious than others. The most frequently recurring theme is an admonition not to give up on life. Why surrender when you don't know what lies ahead? By contrasting Forrest's life with the lives of those around him, and by showing how the passage of time brings solace to even the most embittered hearts, the movie underlines this point.
Forrest Gump is an epic journey of a naïve and slow-witted man who witnesses, and in some cases influences, some of the defining events of the latter half of the 20th century.
Review by – Mayank Bhattacharya