The bastard child of "Being There" and "Zelig"

Rating: 6/10 (15 September 2014)

Somehow, I had not seen this movie when it first came out. I guess it became so big so quickly that it gave me some pause. Everything I had heard about it made me feel that it was going to be one of those cloying, hyper-sentimental Oscar-baits that come out late in the year. After the safe distance of 20 years - and almost as a bet with a friend - I finally got around to seeing it. While I probably didn't hate it as much as I would have in 1994, I still don't understand why it was such a phenomenon in 1994 (were the movies really that bad in the 90s?). I still don't think of it as highly original; it certainly has very strong echoes of "Being There" and "Zelig" (and it certainly is not a good sign when a movie reminds you of so many other, better movies). Overall it is a pretty competent bit of film-making with decent acting (though you can see the seams of the "acting").