Just realized I have a few things to say about
Forrest Gump, as well.
2. FG - Interestingly enough, almost the same criticism. What we should feel is exactly undermined in script for some kind of inexplicable necessity of plot development/characterization. I know it's an adaptation of a novel, but a work of art is a work of art.
Is FG not about how simple, authentic goodness and true love can lead to success? Is this not the inspirational message of the film?
Hmm, sort of. I'd replace "success" with "happiness." Which, given everything else I'm about to quote below, seems like the crux of our disagreement on the film.
Forrest seems to care very little about his success in a financial sense. And the "true love" is more of the general, love-for-mankind sense, not in the
Princess Bride sense (hey, Robin Wright Penn's in both).
This is exactly what doesn't happen in FG. Forrest is anything by simple or authentic. I mean, he is personally, but he's not portrayed as such. First of all, he has superhuman speed. WTF? Second of all he's just amazing at ping pong apparently? Also WTF? These are astounding talents that should be rewarded, but THEY are what make him succeed. There is no message of inspiration. None of us are that fast or good at ping pong. Unless the film was aimed towards that strata of people? It undermines itself with this stupid superhuman stuff. Why, I ask? It was fun to watch, but the message was lost entirely.
These are fun little episodes, to be sure, and more than a little random, but they're not the ultimate reason he's successful, and they're not the most important parts of his life. The ping pong thing is almost completely incidental to everything else that happens, for example, so let's just focus on his speed.
The speed is certainly useful when it comes to running away, and arguably useful for helping him rescue those soldiers, but by and large it just gets him into college. But what does
that get him? His diploma ends up being largely irrelevant, seeing as how he just ends up in Vietnam.
Besides, I don't have to tell you that the story has a fable-like quality to it at times, so his speed almost seems like a karmic reward for the leg braces, which I'd always assumed strengthened his legs and made him faster, whether or not that's at all plausible in reality.
But really, the key thing here is not that he's successful, but that he
doesn't care that he's successful. He likes it well enough, but his attitude towards money is that having it just means he has "one less thing" to worry about. He has roughly the same temperament when he's a terribly poor, crippled boy as he does when he's a very comfortable multi-millionaire. I think that pretty definitively undermines the idea that the film is about success.
Jenny only wants to be with him when he's a decorated soldier and on television. Isn't that convenient? I'm a good feminist so the caricature of the opportunistic gold-digger taking advantage of a man is very evident here. Simply, it is obscene.
It sure is, but movies are allowed to have obscene characters.
She's a counter to Forrest in most ways; she thinks only of herself, and never seems satisfied with what she's doing. She's always looking for the next thing. She's the polar opposite of Forrest in all these ways.
I'd say she's a bit more tragic than anything, but really, she has to be pretty distasteful, because it makes it that much more significant that Forrest accepts her, anyway.