The World According to GarpFor some, when it comes to getting what they want out of this adventure that we call life, it isn't as important as to "how" they get it, but "why". The World According to Garp is a dramedy about the life of a man with the bizarre name of "T. S. Garp" (Robin Williams), or "Garp" for short. Garp got his name from his father, a "technical sergeant" whom his mother, Jenny Fields (Glenn Close), claims was the only word that he could utter as he lay dying...but not dead enough to prevent him from enabling Jenny to benefit from satisfying her interest in having a child without all of the fuss of a partner. Life was always going to be a little...different for Garp.
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The movie starts by exploring Garp's unorthodox upbringing, in this case from Jenny's decision to have a child both out of wedlock and--shockingly--without the express consent of the father. Even in 1944, the year Garp was born, the former may have been frowned upon, but the latter is outrageous. And yet to Jenny, who supports Gump by using her training as a nurse to work at a nearby boarding school where they live, this doesn't phase her one bit. Jenny seems intelligent enough, but in more than a few instances she seems to openly defy social convention, whether out of spite for it or an innocent absence of social decorum. Garp's childhood is molded by his mother, or at least up to a point. He longs to know his father, imagining him to be a fighter pilot in his crayon drawings. Jenny wants Garp to get into basketball and considers wrestling beneath him. So as many children often do, Garp gets into wrestling and finds that he has a talent for it. His eye is ultimately drawn to the bookish daughter of his wrestling coach, a quiet girl named Helen Holm (Mary Beth Hurt). She claims that she would only marry a writer, so Garp alters the very trajectory of his life to become a writer for her behalf, finding that he has a talent here, too. But when his mother discerns that he's doing all of his thinking with his hormones first, she becomes resentful and opts to write her own memoirs while refusing that Garp use her life in his writing. Subsequently, Jenny produces a best-selling feminist bible titled "Sexual Suspect", on account of feeling ostracized for wanting to have a child without the obligations of family that comes with it.
It is at about the halfway point of The World According to Garp where things really start to feel like they're going off the rails. Overshadowed by his mother, Garp attends a feminist rally where a gunman in the midst makes it clear that Jenny's path to success will be more volatile than he could have ever expected. She retreats to the seaside estate of her parents where she establishes a commune for women seeking refuge from men, including an ex-football player turned transgender acolyte of Jenny's named Roberta (John Lithgow). Though most of Jenny's clan regards Garp as just another dangerous man, Garp and his family--now including two children named Duncan and Walt--befriend Roberta, who comes across as the sanest of all of this motley crew of characters when all is said and done. Garp continues to write while Helen becomes a graduate school teacher, where an amorous student named Michael Milton (Mark Soper) sets his eyes on her for an affair. In time, Garp's fiction proves successful, but after he hears that a woman who some of Jenny's cult idolize--named Ellen James (Amanda Plummer)--has requested that these followers stop mutilating themselves in her name (they forcibly remove their tongues in protest against violence toward women), he takes the plunge and writes a nonfiction plea for social change like his mother has. Before long, Garp's carefully constructed suburban sanctum away from the madness that flourishes around his mother and her chosen way of life begins to get absorbed into the chaos as well.
Watching The World According to Garp today, more than forty years after it was made, it's surprising to see how similar it is in spirit to a movie like Forrest Gump, and I don't just mean by the protagonist's odd sounding name. Garp grows up in the wake of World War II, and Jenny's deliberate attempt to be a modern woman--i.e. choosing her fate without permission from a man--means that his life is forever lived in her wake. She is a loving mother, but controlling. She has an ironically puritanical outlook on sexuality, considering young men and women to be plagued by "lust", and that their actions are derived solely from this. From one warped point of view, she's right, as Garp proves with Helen. He's already set his mind on having her before he even speaks to her, coyly flirting with her on the football stands. Garp has already had some youthful sexual experience with a neighbor girl named Cushie (Jenny Wright). And after a spiteful young girl named Pooh (Brenda Currin) demonstrates this to Helen, Helen puts Garp in the dog house for a little while; but as they weren't in a committed relationship yet, the act is soon forgiven...but maybe not wholly forgotten. Fast forward to their happy home life with their two kids. Garp makes grand claims about how delighted he is to be a father and a husband. But one night while taking a babysitter home--who promises that she is eighteen years old--it's heavily implied that he cheats. When Helen asks him about this, his indignation is a little too pronounced. Is this the invitation Helen needed to cheat herself? And when Garp discovers the affair, he is vindictive and outraged; but how is he any different? These events make up the more melodramatic side of The World According to Garp, culminating in a motor vehicle accident that feels like the horrifyingly tragic end of a bad joke. And this represents one of the most noteworthy examples of where the movie begins to buckle under its own weight.
Certainly The World According to Garp is a standout performance for the monumentally talented Robin Williams, a rare actor who could consistently deliver comedy and drama without missing a beat. Clocking in a little over two hours, the movie feels packed full with scene after scene designed to highlight just how crazy life can be, but continuously does so at the expense of plausibility and with increasing fervor. I believe that the movie wants to end up in the madhouse, trying to offer some justification for its shocking conclusion, but it feels more like it's trying to demonstrate how as life for Garp continues, it just becomes more and more insane. Is Garp's mother meant to be a kind of "messiah" for this kind of mad new world, even an unintentional one? Her motives for writing her book seems to come from a genuine desire to understand human nature and sexuality, but it is raised up to be a nigh religious text without her invitation. Is the world she lives in truly so devoid of direction that it is forced to make icons out of celebrities? (Oh, the irony.) Or is it more likely the case that others deliberately turn people into figureheads for their own crusades, just as politicians and other feminists do with her as the years roll on? Garp, on the other hand, pushes back against his mother's influence ironically by wrapping himself up in suburban security, but refuses to hold himself accountable for his own sins. Like his mother, he seems to believe that he is entitled to something--from success to sexual conquest--yet he resents others for having it. Williams beams with nice guy charm, but it becomes clear that this is ultimately just an outward persona, as evidenced when he angrily drags his children out in the rain on the night he discovers that Helen was unfaithful. The World According to Garp always feels the need to push well beyond what is convincing in the last half of its story, and each of its more noteworthy events typically ends with tragedy. There is a comment made by the schoolmaster of the boarding school Garp attended in his youth, about how death can "snatch you up" without warning. Sure, this is true, but it feels like this movie contrives too many scenarios to justify this idea for its own sake.
Recommended for: Fans of a packed full--a bit over-bloated even--comedy/drama about a man with a weird name living in an increasingly mad world, believing himself able to live above it all without consequence. There are many touching and funny moments in The World According to Garp--my favorite being when he warns his son Walt about the undertow on the beach as his mother had when he was a child--but the movie negates the good faith it earns in these moments with too many unrealistic and utterly bizarre plot points that diminish the audience's ability to justifiably relate to the story.
It is at about the halfway point of The World According to Garp where things really start to feel like they're going off the rails. Overshadowed by his mother, Garp attends a feminist rally where a gunman in the midst makes it clear that Jenny's path to success will be more volatile than he could have ever expected. She retreats to the seaside estate of her parents where she establishes a commune for women seeking refuge from men, including an ex-football player turned transgender acolyte of Jenny's named Roberta (John Lithgow). Though most of Jenny's clan regards Garp as just another dangerous man, Garp and his family--now including two children named Duncan and Walt--befriend Roberta, who comes across as the sanest of all of this motley crew of characters when all is said and done. Garp continues to write while Helen becomes a graduate school teacher, where an amorous student named Michael Milton (Mark Soper) sets his eyes on her for an affair. In time, Garp's fiction proves successful, but after he hears that a woman who some of Jenny's cult idolize--named Ellen James (Amanda Plummer)--has requested that these followers stop mutilating themselves in her name (they forcibly remove their tongues in protest against violence toward women), he takes the plunge and writes a nonfiction plea for social change like his mother has. Before long, Garp's carefully constructed suburban sanctum away from the madness that flourishes around his mother and her chosen way of life begins to get absorbed into the chaos as well.
Watching The World According to Garp today, more than forty years after it was made, it's surprising to see how similar it is in spirit to a movie like Forrest Gump, and I don't just mean by the protagonist's odd sounding name. Garp grows up in the wake of World War II, and Jenny's deliberate attempt to be a modern woman--i.e. choosing her fate without permission from a man--means that his life is forever lived in her wake. She is a loving mother, but controlling. She has an ironically puritanical outlook on sexuality, considering young men and women to be plagued by "lust", and that their actions are derived solely from this. From one warped point of view, she's right, as Garp proves with Helen. He's already set his mind on having her before he even speaks to her, coyly flirting with her on the football stands. Garp has already had some youthful sexual experience with a neighbor girl named Cushie (Jenny Wright). And after a spiteful young girl named Pooh (Brenda Currin) demonstrates this to Helen, Helen puts Garp in the dog house for a little while; but as they weren't in a committed relationship yet, the act is soon forgiven...but maybe not wholly forgotten. Fast forward to their happy home life with their two kids. Garp makes grand claims about how delighted he is to be a father and a husband. But one night while taking a babysitter home--who promises that she is eighteen years old--it's heavily implied that he cheats. When Helen asks him about this, his indignation is a little too pronounced. Is this the invitation Helen needed to cheat herself? And when Garp discovers the affair, he is vindictive and outraged; but how is he any different? These events make up the more melodramatic side of The World According to Garp, culminating in a motor vehicle accident that feels like the horrifyingly tragic end of a bad joke. And this represents one of the most noteworthy examples of where the movie begins to buckle under its own weight.
Certainly The World According to Garp is a standout performance for the monumentally talented Robin Williams, a rare actor who could consistently deliver comedy and drama without missing a beat. Clocking in a little over two hours, the movie feels packed full with scene after scene designed to highlight just how crazy life can be, but continuously does so at the expense of plausibility and with increasing fervor. I believe that the movie wants to end up in the madhouse, trying to offer some justification for its shocking conclusion, but it feels more like it's trying to demonstrate how as life for Garp continues, it just becomes more and more insane. Is Garp's mother meant to be a kind of "messiah" for this kind of mad new world, even an unintentional one? Her motives for writing her book seems to come from a genuine desire to understand human nature and sexuality, but it is raised up to be a nigh religious text without her invitation. Is the world she lives in truly so devoid of direction that it is forced to make icons out of celebrities? (Oh, the irony.) Or is it more likely the case that others deliberately turn people into figureheads for their own crusades, just as politicians and other feminists do with her as the years roll on? Garp, on the other hand, pushes back against his mother's influence ironically by wrapping himself up in suburban security, but refuses to hold himself accountable for his own sins. Like his mother, he seems to believe that he is entitled to something--from success to sexual conquest--yet he resents others for having it. Williams beams with nice guy charm, but it becomes clear that this is ultimately just an outward persona, as evidenced when he angrily drags his children out in the rain on the night he discovers that Helen was unfaithful. The World According to Garp always feels the need to push well beyond what is convincing in the last half of its story, and each of its more noteworthy events typically ends with tragedy. There is a comment made by the schoolmaster of the boarding school Garp attended in his youth, about how death can "snatch you up" without warning. Sure, this is true, but it feels like this movie contrives too many scenarios to justify this idea for its own sake.
Recommended for: Fans of a packed full--a bit over-bloated even--comedy/drama about a man with a weird name living in an increasingly mad world, believing himself able to live above it all without consequence. There are many touching and funny moments in The World According to Garp--my favorite being when he warns his son Walt about the undertow on the beach as his mother had when he was a child--but the movie negates the good faith it earns in these moments with too many unrealistic and utterly bizarre plot points that diminish the audience's ability to justifiably relate to the story.