I'll admit off the bat that this is my first John Irving experience. I had heard his work is very quirky, surreal, American, and tackles subjects that make you squirm and in a way that makes you squirm even more. Garp exhibits all of these facets, and while I gasped at the awkwardness, basked in the Americana, squirmed at the subject matter and raised an eyebrow many times in between, I ultimately found it interesting, but I can't quite say that I liked it. Even so, I believe this is a fault of the movie and not the material.
Lust. (Do I have your attention)? Anyway, of Garp's various subjects, this is the at the forefront, which becomes clear very quickly as the word is a sort of anti-mantra for Jenny Fields (Glenn Close), a nurse at an all-boys school and mother of the titular character. Having conceived Garp in a situation completely free of lust, having taken advantage of a dying WWII pilot who, shall we say, couldn't stop standing at attention, Fields is a woman constantly on the lookout for any kind of carnal expression. This is hardly a boon for her son, who is introduced as an imaginative, wistful boy whose dreams and fantasies are filled with airplanes and what his father might have been like, and who directs those yearnings towards becoming a successful author and, much to his mother's dismay, pleasing women, as he grows into Robin Williams. Garp is able to evade his mother's determination while courting his college sweetheart, but she still ends up making his life very difficult when, as soon as Garp's first book hits stores, she too assembles her own literary breakthrough: a sprawling and much more successful anti-lust manifesto. The work transforms Jenny into a sort of feminist cult figure, particularly to a group of supporters calling themselves Ellen Jamesians, each of whom cut their tongue out in support of a rape victim of the same name. As Jenny's influence expands, Garp does his best to provide a good life for his wife and kids, and while his efforts cause Jenny to gradually shed her misgivings, they of course draw the ire of the Jamesians. Naturally, this clash of ideals escalates to a shocking and circular conclusion.
If anything, Garp's exploration of lust is successful at demonstrating the extent to which we control our lustful urges or let them control us directs our growth as people. What this exploration does, though, is reveal truths that are even more interesting, namely that staying too true to an ideal, no matter how honorable, can have debilitating effects, and that the rejection of any alternatives to that ideal often stems from fear and ignorance. This is perhaps best revealed in a scene where Garp's mother confronts a prostitute not to accost her, but to simply understand why she does what she does and if she gets any joy out of it. Poignant moments like these are the movie's strength, as are its performances, particularly Close as Jenny and John Lithgow as Roberta, a transsexual former football player and Jenny follower. Robin Williams' performance, on the other hand, is unsuitably passive, especially for a man under so many constricting influences. And as interesting as Garp's themes may be, it does not excuse the movie from telling its story unsatisfactorily. Many scenes that come across as quirky or surreal may have just been poorly translated to the screen. If I had not have known Garp was an adaptation, I would have figured it out, as I often felt the need to reach for some kind of guide for more information. Also, there is what feels like a push to make the movie into an inspirational family drama as it goes on, which does not really go along with its sensibility-challenging ways. A lot of the interesting parts I mentioned (the Ellen Jamesians, Roberta's dilemma) fall more and more by the wayside or simply become less interesting. But really, the movie never quite achieves the right balance between the surreal and the grounded, or even the comedic and the serious. A climatic scene involving one of Garp's sons and its aftermath, for example, left me wondering whether to laugh or cry, and even if anything really happened at all. In short, Garp left me with a lot to think about, but with a lot of it being whether or not the filmmakers knew what they had to work with or even if they fully understood it.
Lust. (Do I have your attention)? Anyway, of Garp's various subjects, this is the at the forefront, which becomes clear very quickly as the word is a sort of anti-mantra for Jenny Fields (Glenn Close), a nurse at an all-boys school and mother of the titular character. Having conceived Garp in a situation completely free of lust, having taken advantage of a dying WWII pilot who, shall we say, couldn't stop standing at attention, Fields is a woman constantly on the lookout for any kind of carnal expression. This is hardly a boon for her son, who is introduced as an imaginative, wistful boy whose dreams and fantasies are filled with airplanes and what his father might have been like, and who directs those yearnings towards becoming a successful author and, much to his mother's dismay, pleasing women, as he grows into Robin Williams. Garp is able to evade his mother's determination while courting his college sweetheart, but she still ends up making his life very difficult when, as soon as Garp's first book hits stores, she too assembles her own literary breakthrough: a sprawling and much more successful anti-lust manifesto. The work transforms Jenny into a sort of feminist cult figure, particularly to a group of supporters calling themselves Ellen Jamesians, each of whom cut their tongue out in support of a rape victim of the same name. As Jenny's influence expands, Garp does his best to provide a good life for his wife and kids, and while his efforts cause Jenny to gradually shed her misgivings, they of course draw the ire of the Jamesians. Naturally, this clash of ideals escalates to a shocking and circular conclusion.
If anything, Garp's exploration of lust is successful at demonstrating the extent to which we control our lustful urges or let them control us directs our growth as people. What this exploration does, though, is reveal truths that are even more interesting, namely that staying too true to an ideal, no matter how honorable, can have debilitating effects, and that the rejection of any alternatives to that ideal often stems from fear and ignorance. This is perhaps best revealed in a scene where Garp's mother confronts a prostitute not to accost her, but to simply understand why she does what she does and if she gets any joy out of it. Poignant moments like these are the movie's strength, as are its performances, particularly Close as Jenny and John Lithgow as Roberta, a transsexual former football player and Jenny follower. Robin Williams' performance, on the other hand, is unsuitably passive, especially for a man under so many constricting influences. And as interesting as Garp's themes may be, it does not excuse the movie from telling its story unsatisfactorily. Many scenes that come across as quirky or surreal may have just been poorly translated to the screen. If I had not have known Garp was an adaptation, I would have figured it out, as I often felt the need to reach for some kind of guide for more information. Also, there is what feels like a push to make the movie into an inspirational family drama as it goes on, which does not really go along with its sensibility-challenging ways. A lot of the interesting parts I mentioned (the Ellen Jamesians, Roberta's dilemma) fall more and more by the wayside or simply become less interesting. But really, the movie never quite achieves the right balance between the surreal and the grounded, or even the comedic and the serious. A climatic scene involving one of Garp's sons and its aftermath, for example, left me wondering whether to laugh or cry, and even if anything really happened at all. In short, Garp left me with a lot to think about, but with a lot of it being whether or not the filmmakers knew what they had to work with or even if they fully understood it.