.gif)
The World According to Garp (film)
Encyclopedia
The World According to Garp is 1982 American comedy drama film directed by George Roy Hill
, based on the novel of the same title
by John Irving
, who also wrote the script together with Steve Tesich
. For their roles, John Lithgow
and Glenn Close
were respectively nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 55th Academy Awards
.
), the illegitimate
son of a feminist mother, Jenny Fields (Glenn Close
, in her feature film debut). Jenny wanted a child but not a husband. A nurse during the closing months of World War II
, she encounters a dying ball turret
gunner known only as Technical Sergeant
Garp who was severely brain damaged
in combat. Jenny nurses Garp, observing his infantile state and almost perpetual autonomic sexual arousal. Unconstrained by convention and driven by practicality and her desire for a child, Jenny uses Garp's sexual response to impregnate herself, and names the resultant son after him "T. S." (standing only for "Technical Sergeant"). Jenny raises young Garp alone.
Garp grows up, becoming interested in wrestling
and writing fiction
, topics his mother has little interest in. However, his writing piques the interest of the daughter of the school's wrestling coach, Helen Holm (Mary Beth Hurt
). She is wary of him, however, because Garp is quite promiscuous at school. Jenny also observes Garp's behavior in this regard and is intellectually curious about it, having little more than clinical interest in sex herself. She offers to procure a prostitute for Garp, and engaging the two of them in conversation on the subject, decides to write a book on her observations of lust and human sexuality.
Her book is a partial autobiography called A Sexual Suspect, and is an overnight sensation. The title refers to the general assessment of her as a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own. The book is a best-seller and Jenny becomes a feminist
icon. She uses the proceeds from the book to found a center at her home for troubled and abused women and transexuals. Meanwhile, Garp's first novel is published, which impresses Helen. The two marry and eventually have two children, Duncan and Walt.
Garp becomes a devoted parent and successful fiction writer. However, he and his wife both struggle with fidelity. He spends a lot of time visiting his mother and the people who live at her center, including transsexual ex-football
player Roberta Muldoon (John Lithgow
). He learns much about the intolerance and brutality directed toward the center's residents. He also first hears the story of Ellen James, a girl who was gang-raped and then had her tongue cut out so that she could not easily identify her attackers. Some of the women at Jenny's center are "Ellen Jamesians", women who voluntarily cut out their own tongues as a show of solidarity. Garp is horrified by the practice and learns that the Jamesians have received a letter from Ellen James herself begging them to stop the practice, but that they have voted to refuse.
Having learned about his wife infidelity with one of her students, Garp gets in a car accident while his children are riding in the back seat of his car. The person he crashed into was his wife, who was performing fellatio
on the man with whom she was having an affair. One of the sons is killed and the other experiences an eye injury as a result. Garp's jaw was wired-shut in order to heal from the injury and Helen also experienced an unspecified injury to her jaw. The man on whom she was performing fellatio apparently had his penis severed as a result of the accident. This turns into a time of emotional healing when Garp, through the aid of his mother, learns to forgive himself and his wife for his fidelity problems. The couple reconcile and they have a baby daughter named Jenny after her grandmother.
Jenny encounters intolerance, including violent men in the lives of the women that she helps. Because of both her center and her book, she has been receiving credible death threats. To Garp's dismay, she is dismissive of physical danger, and in fact, decides to endorse a politician who supports her message. Garp writes a book about the life of Ellen James. The book is very successful and well-regarded, but is highly critical of the Jamesians. Garp begins receiving death threats of his own from them.
During a political rally, Jenny is shot and killed by a fanatic male anti-feminist. The women of Jenny's center hold a memorial for her, but forbid any man from attending. Garp, dressed as a woman, is secreted into the memorial by Muldoon. However, he is identified by Pooh, a Jamesian he had known when they both were in school. A commotion breaks out and Garp is in danger of being hurt until a woman leads him out of the memorial, away from danger, and to a taxi. The woman is Ellen James (Amanda Plummer, in an early cameo role), who thanks Garp for his book about her. The Jamesians are further outraged that Garp attended the memorial.
Garp returns to his old school to semi-retirement as the wrestling coach. One day during practice, Pooh, the Jamesian that identified him at his mother's memorial, enters the gymnasium and shoots him at close range with a pistol. She is tackled by the wrestlers, and Garp is airlifted away from the school by helicopter. He lapses into delirium, flashing back to an earlier time when his mother would toss him into the air. The movie is left open-ended
on whether he survives or not.
. Film critic Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
gave the movie a positive review, despite being critical of the film's "palatable" interpretation of the novel, stating, "John Irving
's best-selling novel, The World According to Garp, was cruel, annoying, and smug. I kept wanting to give it to my cats. But it was wonderfully well-written and was probably intended to inspire some of those negative reactions in the reader. The movie version of Garp, however, left me entertained but unmoved, and perhaps the movie's basic failing is that it did not inspire me to walk out on it." However, he still gave the film three out of a possible four stars, concluding, "While I watched GARP, I enjoyed it. I thought the acting was unconventional and absorbing (especially by Williams, by Glenn Close as his mother, and by John Lithgow as a transsexual). I thought the visualization of the events, by director George Roy Hill, was fresh and consistently interesting. But when the movie was over, my immediate response was not at all what it should have been. All I could find to ask myself was: What the hell was that all about?"
George Roy Hill
George Roy Hill was an American film director. He is most noted for directing such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, which both starred the acting duo Paul Newman and Robert Redford...
, based on the novel of the same title
The World According to Garp
The World According to Garp is John Irving's fourth novel. Published in 1978, the book was a bestseller for several years.A movie adaptation of the novel starring Robin Williams was released in 1982, with a screenplay written by Steve Tesich....
by John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...
, who also wrote the script together with Steve Tesich
Steve Tesich
Stojan Steve Tesich was a Serbian-American screenwriter, playwright and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1979 for the movie Breaking Away.-Career:...
. For their roles, John Lithgow
John Lithgow
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...
and Glenn Close
Glenn Close
Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...
were respectively nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 55th Academy Awards
55th Academy Awards
The 55th Academy Awards were presented April 11, 1983 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore, Richard Pryor, and Walter Matthau.Louis Gossett, Jr...
.
Plot
The story chronicles the life of T. S. Garp (Robin WilliamsRobin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
), the illegitimate
Legitimacy (law)
At common law, legitimacy is the status of a child who is born to parents who are legally married to one another; and of a child who is born shortly after the parents' divorce. In canon and in civil law, the offspring of putative marriages have been considered legitimate children...
son of a feminist mother, Jenny Fields (Glenn Close
Glenn Close
Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...
, in her feature film debut). Jenny wanted a child but not a husband. A nurse during the closing months of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, she encounters a dying ball turret
Ball turret
A ball turret was a particular form of spherical-form, altazimuth mount movement manned aircraft gun turret, accommodating the gunner with nearly all the needed equipment for defensive firepower mounted either within or onto the spherical shell of the turret structure, mounted on aircraft during...
gunner known only as Technical Sergeant
Technical Sergeant
Technical Sergeant is the name of one current and two former enlisted ranks in the United States military.-United States Air Force:Technical Sergeant, or Tech Sergeant, is the sixth enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force, just above Staff Sergeant and below Master Sergeant. A technical sergeant is...
Garp who was severely brain damaged
Brain damage
"Brain damage" or "brain injury" is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors...
in combat. Jenny nurses Garp, observing his infantile state and almost perpetual autonomic sexual arousal. Unconstrained by convention and driven by practicality and her desire for a child, Jenny uses Garp's sexual response to impregnate herself, and names the resultant son after him "T. S." (standing only for "Technical Sergeant"). Jenny raises young Garp alone.
Garp grows up, becoming interested in wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
and writing fiction
Fiction writing
Fiction writing is any kind of writing that is not factual. Fictional writing most often takes the form of a story meant to convey an author's point of view or simply to entertain...
, topics his mother has little interest in. However, his writing piques the interest of the daughter of the school's wrestling coach, Helen Holm (Mary Beth Hurt
Mary Beth Hurt
Mary Beth Hurt is an American actress of stage and screen.-Personal life:Hurt was born Mary Supinger in 1946 in Marshalltown, Iowa, the daughter of Delores Lenore and Forrest Clayton Supinger. Her childhood babysitter was actress Jean Seberg, also a Marshalltown native...
). She is wary of him, however, because Garp is quite promiscuous at school. Jenny also observes Garp's behavior in this regard and is intellectually curious about it, having little more than clinical interest in sex herself. She offers to procure a prostitute for Garp, and engaging the two of them in conversation on the subject, decides to write a book on her observations of lust and human sexuality.
Her book is a partial autobiography called A Sexual Suspect, and is an overnight sensation. The title refers to the general assessment of her as a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own. The book is a best-seller and Jenny becomes a feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
icon. She uses the proceeds from the book to found a center at her home for troubled and abused women and transexuals. Meanwhile, Garp's first novel is published, which impresses Helen. The two marry and eventually have two children, Duncan and Walt.
Garp becomes a devoted parent and successful fiction writer. However, he and his wife both struggle with fidelity. He spends a lot of time visiting his mother and the people who live at her center, including transsexual ex-football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player Roberta Muldoon (John Lithgow
John Lithgow
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...
). He learns much about the intolerance and brutality directed toward the center's residents. He also first hears the story of Ellen James, a girl who was gang-raped and then had her tongue cut out so that she could not easily identify her attackers. Some of the women at Jenny's center are "Ellen Jamesians", women who voluntarily cut out their own tongues as a show of solidarity. Garp is horrified by the practice and learns that the Jamesians have received a letter from Ellen James herself begging them to stop the practice, but that they have voted to refuse.
Having learned about his wife infidelity with one of her students, Garp gets in a car accident while his children are riding in the back seat of his car. The person he crashed into was his wife, who was performing fellatio
Fellatio
Fellatio is an act of oral stimulation of a male's penis by a sexual partner. It involves the stimulation of the penis by the use of the mouth, tongue, or throat. The person who performs fellatio can be referred to as the giving partner, and the other person is the receiving partner...
on the man with whom she was having an affair. One of the sons is killed and the other experiences an eye injury as a result. Garp's jaw was wired-shut in order to heal from the injury and Helen also experienced an unspecified injury to her jaw. The man on whom she was performing fellatio apparently had his penis severed as a result of the accident. This turns into a time of emotional healing when Garp, through the aid of his mother, learns to forgive himself and his wife for his fidelity problems. The couple reconcile and they have a baby daughter named Jenny after her grandmother.
Jenny encounters intolerance, including violent men in the lives of the women that she helps. Because of both her center and her book, she has been receiving credible death threats. To Garp's dismay, she is dismissive of physical danger, and in fact, decides to endorse a politician who supports her message. Garp writes a book about the life of Ellen James. The book is very successful and well-regarded, but is highly critical of the Jamesians. Garp begins receiving death threats of his own from them.
During a political rally, Jenny is shot and killed by a fanatic male anti-feminist. The women of Jenny's center hold a memorial for her, but forbid any man from attending. Garp, dressed as a woman, is secreted into the memorial by Muldoon. However, he is identified by Pooh, a Jamesian he had known when they both were in school. A commotion breaks out and Garp is in danger of being hurt until a woman leads him out of the memorial, away from danger, and to a taxi. The woman is Ellen James (Amanda Plummer, in an early cameo role), who thanks Garp for his book about her. The Jamesians are further outraged that Garp attended the memorial.
Garp returns to his old school to semi-retirement as the wrestling coach. One day during practice, Pooh, the Jamesian that identified him at his mother's memorial, enters the gymnasium and shoots him at close range with a pistol. She is tackled by the wrestlers, and Garp is airlifted away from the school by helicopter. He lapses into delirium, flashing back to an earlier time when his mother would toss him into the air. The movie is left open-ended
Open-ended
Open-ended may refer to:* "Open Ended," song by Sebadoh from their 1996 album Harmacy* Open-ended contract A contract with no definite time limit...
on whether he survives or not.
Cast
- Robin WilliamsRobin WilliamsRobin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
as T.S. Garp - James "J.B." McCall as young Garp
- Mary Beth HurtMary Beth HurtMary Beth Hurt is an American actress of stage and screen.-Personal life:Hurt was born Mary Supinger in 1946 in Marshalltown, Iowa, the daughter of Delores Lenore and Forrest Clayton Supinger. Her childhood babysitter was actress Jean Seberg, also a Marshalltown native...
as Helen Holm - Glenn CloseGlenn CloseGlenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...
as Jenny Fields - John LithgowJohn LithgowJohn Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...
as Roberta Muldoon - Hume CronynHume CronynHume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...
as Mr. Fields - Jessica TandyJessica TandyJessie Alice "Jessica" Tandy was an English-American stage and film actress.She first appeared on the London stage in 1926 at the age of 16, playing, among others, Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier's Henry V, and Cordelia opposite John Gielgud's King Lear. She also worked in British films...
as Mrs. Fields - Swoosie KurtzSwoosie KurtzSwoosie Kurtz is an American actress. She began her career in theater during the 1970s and shortly thereafter began a career in television, garnering ten nominations and winning one Emmy Award. Her most famous television project was her role on the 1990s NBC drama Sisters...
as The Hooker - Peter Michael GoetzPeter Michael GoetzPeter Michael Goetz is an American actor.Goetz was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Esther L. and Irving A. Goetz, a construction engineer. Goetz studied at the State University of New York at Fredonia, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and the University of Minnesota, from which he...
as John Wolf - Mark SoperMark SoperMark Soper is an American actor, best known for his role as Joseph Barringer in the television series Knots Landing and his role as Michael Milton in The World According to Garp.Soper is originally from Boyertown, Pennsylvania....
as Michael Milton
Reception
The World According to Garp was well-received by the majority of critics and currently holds a 79% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
gave the movie a positive review, despite being critical of the film's "palatable" interpretation of the novel, stating, "John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...
's best-selling novel, The World According to Garp, was cruel, annoying, and smug. I kept wanting to give it to my cats. But it was wonderfully well-written and was probably intended to inspire some of those negative reactions in the reader. The movie version of Garp, however, left me entertained but unmoved, and perhaps the movie's basic failing is that it did not inspire me to walk out on it." However, he still gave the film three out of a possible four stars, concluding, "While I watched GARP, I enjoyed it. I thought the acting was unconventional and absorbing (especially by Williams, by Glenn Close as his mother, and by John Lithgow as a transsexual). I thought the visualization of the events, by director George Roy Hill, was fresh and consistently interesting. But when the movie was over, my immediate response was not at all what it should have been. All I could find to ask myself was: What the hell was that all about?"