"That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard of."

You weren't wrong.

Oh, the love story. I remember being young and hating the love story of any movie. "Why does it always have to go back to one person being in love with another?"

I was young.

From the way you were pitched by the exec, it was a stupid idea. The pitch just gave an outline of events and left out the heart, the meaning of the story. The entire second half of the 20th century is covered in Forrest Gump - and a person who'd normally be discounted by society plays a pivotal role throughout. It's about the passage of time and how we're really only here for a short while so you should just make the best of what you get - that old box of chocolates line. The meaning of the story is shown via the love story: Forrest makes the best of his situation, Jenny rails against hers. Forrest lives in the moment, Jenny is haunted by the past. It's a carpe diem story, but the twist is the protagonist doesn't even realize he's the protagonist. He's just such a good guy going about his simple life, yet he always does the right thing while the people around him are like figures in Greek tragedy railing against the gods and it's the Forrest, the kind of guy modern society writes off, who always has to rescue them.

Anyway, I guess you can tell I really like this one. But, by that pitch, I'd of totally thought that the studio making it was going to lose some major cash.

I dislike Forrest Gump (speaking of the film, not the character) because the love story holding it all together doesn't work. At all.

Jenny has to be one of the most despicable characters in cinematic history. I did not like her one bit. After living her youth as some sort of trashy tramp, she shows up at Forrest's house only when he's filthy rich and his mom is dead. She never attempts to explain why she just decided to show up, and any reason she could have given would be hard to believe. So I think it's reasonable to assume that is why she showed up: Forrest had cash and nobody to steer him in the right direction.

Before this point, there was never a moment in her adulthood where she showed that she actually cared about Forrest. Not one single moment. So after being treated like royalty for a while, what does she do? Bang him good (probably transferring the virus that ends up killing her) and then leave secretly in the morning without ever saying goodbye or giving an explanation. And that was after Forrest asked her to marry him!

And what's the last thing she does? Shows up with a kid that she claims is Forrest's. It may or may not be, but either way, she's a bitch. She's a bitch if it's not, and a bitch if it is for keeping him from Forrest for 6 years.

I actually started disliking Forrest because he wasted so much time and energy focusing on someone who clearly didn't care about him in return whatsoever. It would have been different if Jenny overcame her hardships and learned to be a good person and perhaps even care about Forrest for real. At least she could have been honest with him instead of wasting his time and money.

But this never happens. Jenny is defeated by the hardships of her life when she is a child and is never able to stand up on her own feet and transform herself into a good person.

If you hate the movie, read the novel. You'll come away convinced that Roth earned every gram of that Oscar.

In fairness, I read the novel long ago and after I'd seen the movie, so perhaps there are nuances I didn't pick up on. My memory was that it didn't set me on fire. The sequel novel was far worse though.

Scott, you cannot blame yourself about this. She gave the WORST pitch in the world! Gump is about "if you keep coming at stuff like an idiot, you'll eventually make it"...the story entertains the idea of "consistency" on an elaborate level... There was nothing consistent about what she said ?

Thanks for your moral support, Angie! Indeed, it was a pretty substandard way of communicating the story. Actually something that happens in Hollywood more frequently than you'd expect. Some folks can only convey 'story' as a series of events like literally TELLING you the story as opposed to discussing the Story. That said, I will still refer to my reaction to her pitch as a reminder that we need to think twice about anything coming our way story-wise. We may overlook or reject gold.