"Forrest Gump" is the story of a man who overcomes numerous obstacles throughout different stages of his life and always seems to see the brighter side of things in the process. Through the movie's entirety, outstanding performances from various award winning actors give this film's involved and interesting plot a sense of realism that is far superior to that of other dramatic movies.
The film "Forrest Gump" is about a simple man's journey through complicated times. Forrest is played with the grace of a tightrope walker by Tom Hanks. He (Gump) is mildly retarded; he has an IQ of 75 at the movie's start and stays pretty much on that level all the way through. His trove of facts increases, but his basic methodology of handling the world never changes. As a boy, with braces on his legs, he peers at life and expects little more than to be heard and acknowledged, and the first person aside from his doting mother to do that with him is his lifelong love, Jenny (Robin Wright). Then one day the braces come off, more or less by accident, and Forrest discovers he can run like hell. He couples that with advice from Jenny (that the best thing to do when you're in trouble is just run) and this becomes the big asset that gets him through college on a football scholarship. And the one thing that gets him through Vietnam, allowing him to save most of his platoon and receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Although he rescues his platoon leader (Gary Sinise), the man has nothing but rancor and bitterness, since he lost his legs, while Gump only got shot in the rear. After Vietnam, Gump goes on to be the captain of a shrimp boat, a Ping-Pong champion, a multi-millionaire, and a cross-country runner. The sly thing about the movie is the way he just sort of backs into everything, doing what comes naturally, and is even happy when nothing happens. All he wants out of life is the love of a woman, even though she's a damaged and desperate person who frantically avoids real love out of the fear that she will just bring a person that's better than her down.