the “a film that transcends the genre” thing
Forrest Gump is a drama-comedy film of one man’s story. In the beginning, Gump begins to tell his entire life’s story on a park bench when he says ‘Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you’re gonna get.”
I believe his statement alone is two fold, which leads the entire movie to transcend from just a film that plays to drama and comedy, to a film with a message for the audience, bleeding over both drama and comedy and into something more. On one level, the whole movie is full of twists and turns in the plot, full of ups and downs of Forrest’s life, and by the way that he tells it, his many different listeners never really know what a day-in-the-life of Forrest might bring.
But on another, deeper level, it’s about a man who wouldn’t let limitations stop him. Although the movie doesn’t come right out and say it, the way Tom Hanks plays Forrest Gump lets the audience know that Gump is not all there mentally. But even if he may have these mental limitations that don’t fit societies standards of “normal” - he can, and went on to do incredible things, yet still maintaining a kind, humble heart.
Even with legs as “crooked as a politician” he still ran from ocean to ocean. In fact, as his stories play out, the audience begins to wonder what the world would be like without a man like Forrest. And yes, even though the story is fictitious, the deeper message that you can truly do anything if you believe you can, and as long as you stay determined, even if life is like a box of chocolates, you can handle anything.
