Make a movie about a retard, or play one. Look at Hoffman in "Rainman" or Miles in "Ryan's Daughter", they won Oscars for playing retards too. You can't go wrong with a stupid person as the focus, sort of like the chimp lead. Better yet, endow him with all sorts of savant-like talents like superhuman strength and sports agility. What silly, contrived hokum. This is a sentimental piece of schlock that is always simple and forced. "Life is like a box of chocolates", yeah, right! The only one who deserved the Oscar lost, Gary Sinise. Finally, use cgi to work the retard into all the key TV/pop culture moments, guaranteed to melt a boomer's heart. Have him influence the whole world with his simple homespun Gomer Pyle platitudes. If the director had another 10 minutes to fill, Gump would have redesigned the Apollo space ship program and got the astronauts to the Moon. Enough sugar here to rot our whole country's teeth. It proves that pop culture really sucks. "Pulp Fiction" was it's dark Oscar nominated rival in 1994. It was a better movie with a sicker message so it lost to this treacle,