My family’s had the DVD for Forrest Gump for years, but the only thing I knew prior to the viewing last Friday was the intro feather scene. Having finally watched it, I enjoyed it very much. The way that Forrest Gump was told as a series of scenes that chronicle parts of Forrest’s life was honestly more appealing than the standard beginning conflict-rising action-climax-falling action. As someone who tends to get very invested in characters, movie or otherwise, huge plot climaxes make me very apprehensive, decreasing my enjoyment of the movie. As such, I appreciated that Forrest Gump was more like the movie equivalent of a short story collection than a full on novel (even though the movie is based on a novel).

I did feel that Forrest’s luck was a little unrealistic. How could he find out his talents in running, gun dismantling, and ping pong so easily? How did the Jenny 1 survive the hurricane that destroyed every other shrimping boat? How did Lieutenant Dan know to invest in Apple? Admittedly, he’s also had some major bad luck, mostly his loved ones dying before him, but in terms of money, he gets lucky at every turn.