The film is based on Winston Groom's 1986 novel Forrest Gump. But the picture has gone quite far from the original novel. Forrest is described in the book as a cynic and a difficult character. The main line of the film: “Life is like a box of chocolates” contradicts the words from the book “Being an idiot is not a box of chocolates”. And yet the general events from the life of the protagonist were preserved.