Review of The World According to Garp (1982) by Eric H — 13 Dec 2009

Found this on the free HD movie channel the other day. My wife hadn't seen it, and I hadn't seen it in a long long time. I think this is a movie that benefits from a bit of perspective. The World According to Garp is a movie, or at least a story that I've revisited in different forms at varying times in my life. Never have I enjoyed the film more than this last time.

I first saw the film neutered and cut down to a practically incomprehensible mess on one of those Sunday afternoon UHF stations that used to run old movies constantly on the weekends before cable came around and put them out of business. I was in middle school around that time, and I remember distinctly being intrigued but generally confused. My sister, who was in high school at the time, or perhaps just starting college, was a big fan of the book, and she filled in some of the blanks for me, and piqued my curiosity.

When I was in high school, I picked up the book and loved it so much that I dedicated an in-depth comparative literature research paper on the works of John Irving. The thing I remember the most about the book was that it was loaded with extremely outlandish and often perverse sex and violence, and yet felt totally and completely grounded in reality. And the serio-comic tone was something I had never seen before. It was a style that I called hyper-realism in my paper. It was like everything starts in reality, but then becomes so extremely emotionally heightened that the situation begins to leave reality simply to match the heights of the emotions. I thought it was a thoroughly unique style and I totally fell in love with it.

When I revisited the film again years later in college after doing my work on John Irving and the novel, I felt like there was so much missing and changed and softened from the novel, that the story had lost its power. And yet, I didn't hold that against the filmmakers or the cast. John Irving's book strikes a tone of such unique balance between comedy and tragedy and sudden violence and perversity, that I just felt that the novel was unfilmable.

Now, after several years, watching the film with my wife, I have a whole brand new perspective. First of all, through film school I have become more familiar with the work of both the director George Roy Hill and the screenwriter, Steve Tesich. Ever since college I've been a fan of both. Tesich wrote one of my favorite small-town, coming-of-age, comedy/dramas of all time, Breaking Away. And Hill directed Butch and Sundance, The Sting, and Slap Shot, all of which struck a strange and unique tone of comedy and drama and action. So the writing/directing team was uniquely suited to the serio-comic tone of John Irving's original. And watching the film again this time, I think I appreciated the tone that they created a great deal more. I do still believe that it's a softened version of the tone in Irving's novel, but I think it has the ideals of the novel at heart.

The other new perspective is the perspective of now being married and having lived a lot more of my life than when I first came to know this story. The scope of the movie hit me a lot harder this time around. The idea that it covers the life of Garp from the cradle to the grave and all the decisions and mistakes made in between has a subtle power that landed with me and at times made me think about the paths I've chosen in my life.

There is a simple moment toward the end of the film where Garp and his wife sit in their car and watch their kids play and marvel at the path that brought them to be there. It's a simple, quiet moment, but in many ways it comprises the climax of the film, and that's a courageously simple and mundane thing for any filmmaker to rest their climax on. But the moment works for me and carries a great deal of emotional resonance. Perhaps that might be personal to me at 32 and married, trying to have kids. At this point in my life I think I understand the kind of introspective nostalgia Garp and his wife had in that car better than any other time I've been alive.

One last thing, though. I really must say a word about the performances here. Across the board the performances are top notch, but in particular the four main principals, Robin Williams, Mary Beth Hurt, Glenn Close, and John Lithgow are truly phenomenal. Close and Lithgow both were very deservedly nominated for Oscars and indeed have stayed in peoples memories for these roles. And the characters they created are indelible. Even when I was in my Irving purist phase with this movie, I recognized that no one could ever come up with a better Jenny Fields than Glenn Close or a better Roberta the transsexual than John Lithgow. But I think the fantastic nature of their performances overshadowed the more subtle pleasures of Robin Williams and Mary Beth Hurt's performances. I think it's a major deal for anyone to be able to use the words "subtle" and "Robin Williams" in the same sentence. But perhaps its because this was before Williams had made a household comedy name for himself that he was able to deliver a more subdued and subtle performance. In all his work he has never again struck this kind of balance of comedy and drama. And Mary Beth Hurt strikes a tone of sensitivity and sweetness as Garp's wife to match Williams' performance. Together, they make up the emotional center of the film, and their reactions to the craziness around them is what gives the comedy laughs and the tragedy some palpable drama.

It's still difficult for me to separate the experience of the film from the experience of the novel, and in light of that it does feel like the movie is perhaps a bit disjointed. But this last time around, I think I came the closest to appreciating the movie on its own terms, and I enjoyed it a great deal.