- As the opening credits roll, we see a white feather floating toward a neighborhood park.
- "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever filmed," an adolescent boy says in voice-over.
- Wait, no. What actually happens is that the feather lands near a man sitting on a bus-stop bench, and he puts it in a little briefcase next to him.
- A woman comes and takes a seat. She tries to read a book, but he says hello and introduces himself before offering her a chocolate.
- Okay, #1, never take candy from strangers. And #2, can't a woman just read a book in peace?
- He tells her that his mother always said, "Life is like a box of chocolates," because you never know what you're going to get. You know, maybe you'll get the delicious pistachio nougat, or maybe you'll get the weird chewy fruit gel. Yuck.
- The woman shows good judgment in that she hardly looks up from her book as Forrest continues to talk about his momma's down-home sayings.
- Eventually, the woman can't ignore him anymore, and she looks up while Forrest reminisces about his first pairs of shoes—like the ones his mom called a "magic pair" that could take him anywhere.
- When the movie cuts to a flashback, we realize that Forrest is talking about leg braces because as a kid, he had a crooked back.
- Forrest says he was named after the man who started the Ku Klux Klan to remind him that sometimes, people do stuff that makes no sense, which … makes no sense. How meta.
- When young Forrest gets his brace stuck in a sewer grate, his mom helps him out and snaps at some men who are gawking. She tells Forrest never to let anyone say they're better than him.
- Forrest goes on to talk about how he and his mom lived in a big house that had been in his mom's family for a dozen or so generations.