Curiously, much of the praise that Forrest Gump received during its initial release left out the work of Robin Wright, the Dallas-born actress who co-starred as Forrest’s love interest, Jenny. Wright had had a breakout role a few years prior when she starred in the quintessential fantasy classic The Princess Bride, but noticeably failed to earn an Oscar nomination for Forrest Gump.
A worthy actress being snubbed by the Academy isn’t a total shock, but the character Jenny has been relentlessly tinged with negativity since the film’s release. Wright even discussed this disparity recently when she noted that some viewers labeled Jenny as the “Voldemort” to Forrest’s Harry Potter.
Forrest Gump is arguably one of the most influential films of the past several decades, but Wright never received the credit she deserved for what was one of the most challenging roles in the film. Jenny is a victim of childhood abuse who, despite making some ill-advised decisions, ends up showing kindness to Forrest when the world can’t see past his disabilities.
This year, Wright, Hanks, and Zemeckis reunited for an adaptation of the graphic novel Here, which faltered at the box office after being demolished by critics. Many were keen to point out the film’s standing in relation to both Hanks and Zemeckis’ recent track records, but Wright has once again been sidelined. Sadly, little has changed in 30 years.
Wright grew up in Dallas before earning a breakout role in the NBC daytime soap opera Santa Barbara in her teen years. The transition from being a “child star” to a legitimate performer is not an easy one, especially for women in the industry. However, the dual success of The Princess Bride and Forrest Gump signified that Wright was worth taking seriously and that she was interested in playing complicated women.
Many of her fellow actors at the time looked to big-budget spectacles for their next projects, but Wright chose to appear in smaller, grounded projects, including M. Night Shyamalan’s supernatural thriller Unbreakable, the complex romantic drama She’s So Lovely and the adaptation of the stage play Hurlyburly.
Prominent actresses are often unfairly judged based on their relationship with their male co-stars, and Wright certainly earned some unwanted attention when he married and subsequently divorced Sean Penn, who directed her in The Pledge and The Crossing Guard. Yet Wright was never going to settle for being mischaracterized in her talent, and she took a chance on prestige television when there was still a fairly sharp divide between “film” and "TV” actors. Her work in HBO’s Empire Falls offered her some of the most substantial work of her career, as well as a Primetime Emmy Award.
Wright’s foresight into the advantages of television led her to appear in Netflix’s groundbreaking political drama House of Cards, one of the first major streaming series to be taken seriously by critics. Given that film studios became more reliant on comic book films, sequels and other projects based on previously established properties, it only made sense that there would be more creativity within an extended format that was not beholden to the restrictions of a broadcast network.
House of Cards may have been the story of how Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood connived his way to become president of the United States, but Wright’s role as Claire, the first lady (and future president), quickly proved to be the show’s “Lady Macbeth.”
The Wright Move
Unfortunately, House of Cards became intertwined with the unraveling legacy of its star, as Spacey’s sexual harassment controversy nearly put the show on an indefinite hiatus. Wright stepped in to steer the ship forward, serving as a director and producer on the sixth and final season. In addition to ditching Spacey altogether and adding a supporting cast that included more women, House of Cards’ final season finally allowed Wright to sit at the head chair in the Oval Office.Wright’s continued excellence in the independent film scene makes it more curious that she has not received more attention for Here, which is one of the rare genuine dramas to hit theaters this fall aimed at adults. The film reunites Hanks and Wright as the couple Richard and Margaret Young and takes place in a single room over the course of many decades (with occasional flashbacks to even earlier points in history).
Zemeckis has spent many of his post-Forrest Gump years working with computer-generated imagery on animated projects (such as The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol), and Here notably uses digital “de-aging” techniques to turn Wright and Hanks back into teenagers.
It’s undeniably distracting, as the vast majority of viewers are likely aware of what these two famous stars looked like when they were younger. But if one forgives some of the strange visual decisions, Here offers a more critical examination of the Boomer generation that was so celebrated in Forrest Gump. Wright’s character has to cope with the fact that her desires are taken for granted, and she spends much of the film waiting for her husband to realize that he needs to move on with his life.
It’s another case where Wright plays a nuanced character that isn’t made to be expressly likable; circumstances relating to the time period in which the film is set in force her to be rather passive, and her fleeting memory makes her less active as the story heads into the couple’s later years.
Nonetheless, it’s compelling that Wright is able to show the dramatic transformations that an American woman makes as she attempts to come out on top in a male-dominated world. Here speeds through decades of maturation, but it does offer a showcase for the transformative work Wright has been doing and why it is worthy of more attention.
