Good story, bad storytelling

Rating: 6/10 (11 June 2014)

This may be a good story.. the rise and rise of a character-from a sportsman to a soldier to a millionaire- who has an IQ lesser than that needed to get admitted in a state school- where he gets bullied and meets his love of life. This character graph has inspired many Bollywood filmmakers (Rajkumar Hirani, Karan Johar in particular) to sketch their characters, and they have milked their stories with enough drama too. I turned upon this film after watching its Bollywood inspirations. But I wasn't looking for any (melo)drama; but subtlety, of course, which, in my opinion, this film lacked. Lacking subtlety is not a problem but hammering with details being blurted out in voice over is, for me. The overdose of voice-over narration concerns me here... it gives too much of unnecessary information which aren't contributing anything to the narrative or the plot or either emotional value, and many of the details are just repeated twice for no particular reason. And this voice-over is not even breaking the fourth wall but is a narration to strangers. He meets these strangers at a bus-stop and they happen to change from time to time, just like the visitors at the home his mom had let for. (Such symbolism, if you call it one, work.) He starts his story quoting his 'mama' (and to count how many times this Mama's boy calls her out could be one irritating game for viewers). This grown up man taking us into the flashback of his childhood never came across to me as a sympathetic one though the film's 'feather light' treatment (also embodied as a symbolism in the film) worked in many tight scenes but at the same time looked desperate in demanding emotion and sympathy from the audience. (Even that white feather hitting the screen with a whoosh at the end came across as- "Oh look, we hit you so hard with such a heartwarming and light story"). Maybe I'm too cynical but the character, Forrest Gump, looked to me as a dumb throughout. And over-usage of the quote "An idiot is as idiot does" made him look more. And I totally get that the point of the film was to look the cynical world from the prism of an unintelligent man that would make it look more simpler and a winning place, but all I'm saying that this could have been said differently, more beautifully and overwhelmingly and obviously, with some subtlety.
Also I'm not asking to take away its classic status. The way the film depicts and incorporates American history, its thriving new culture and counterculture into its storytelling deserves to be acknowledged and that would have surely helped to achieve this status.
The music score is indeed beautiful. But only if the director had realized that it's also about the 'sight' and not only 'sound', he would have deployed a more focused and centered cinematographer to work who would add his bit to the narrative.
What worries me is that how did a film so repetitive and monotonous in its narration and tone with no powerful visual storytelling win Best Screenplay and Editing awards at the Oscars! But again what overwhelms me is the fact that this film which used visual effects as a requirement and not a motif to tell a story won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects!