I’ve seen Forrest Gump before so I knew the general outline of the plot going into the movie. When first watching the movie it truly feels like a marathon. It takes off in the Fifties when Forrest is a child, and how his friendship with Jenny begins at a very young age. Then the movie precedes to follow his incredible life, bouncing between his fingerprints on the major events of the latter half of the Twentieth Century. From teaching Elvis his iconic dance to alerting the Watergate Hotel to the infamous scandal that was the beginning of the end for the Nixon administration. This movie drives home how the most extraordinary people can arise from the most disadvantageous of positions.

The movie makes many political statements, portraying many controversial times in American history. The Vietnam war is one of the main plot arcs in the movie, focusing on the horror the war, but also life after the war for injured veterans through the character development of Lieutenant Dan. Another detail I noticed is how the movie goes about portraying some of the more famous people from the Nineteenth Century. The perspective of the movie is from Forrest’s so we often see his simple judgements of the men and women he meets over the course of the film, many of whom were very controversial figures, from the three United States Presidents to the political activist Abby Hoffman. His descriptions often refer to what he’s been told about them and not what he thinks, with most of his input coming from his initial impression of them when he met them, or how many people liked or disliked them. The film also flashes forward most of times directly after he meets one of them to either describe their assassination, or their fall from power. This often brings down these figures from their typical larger than life descriptions that many would associate them with today. The film is very detailed and intricate with a lot of things a first-time viewer can miss, and one that should be re watched again.