The Germans have a word for it: Edelkitsch, noble trash. Some recent fictional examples of it are [Erica Jong's] Fear of Flying, [D. M. Thomas's] The White Hotel, and [John Irving's] The World According to Garp…. The movie of Garp, written by Steve Tesich and directed by George Roy Hill, seems to me both more simple-minded and better than the novel. If this sounds like faint praise, it is meant so. Still, as movies go these days, it may not be all that faint after all.

Garp … concerns well-born Jenny Fields, a nurse and fierce feminist, who wants a child but no husband, and so, during World War II, conceives by a dying ball-turret gunner, Technical Sergeant Garp, a child she names T. S. Garp. (p. 1096)

As you must further know, Jenny will write her autobiography as a "sexual suspect" and become a great guru for embattled feminists, including the Ellen Jamesians, who cut out their tongues to show their solidarity with Ellen James, a girl who was raped and had her tongue cut out to prevent her from betraying her violator. As you must also know, Garp, who, just like John Irving, turns into both a fine wrestler and a noted writer, is not so successful as his charismatically best-selling mother, but does well enough to marry nice Helen Holm, who becomes a professor of English. They have nice children whom they adore…. And yet they somehow start cheating on each other, and….

But why am I telling you all this? If you already know it, you surely want to forget it; if you don't and decide to see the movie, which greatly depends on oddball twists, you're better off if you're kept guessing. The novel's complicated plot and subplots have been considerably pared down. This makes the film less tricky and cloyingly sentimental than the book, and also less sadistic: the mutilations in which Irving revels have been omitted or toned down. On the other hand, certain absurdist elements that fit into the fabric of the book are doubly bothersome in the film. First, because film, unable to circumvent the real world, is intrinsically less hospitable to absurdism; and, second, because the screenplay winnows out so many absurdist elements that those left in stick out more jarringly.

Even so, one cannot but admire the talent for compression and suggestion that both Hill and Tesich exhibit. Take the very title sequence: to the accompaniment of the Beatles singing "Will you still love me when I'm 64?" an angelically smiling yet slightly befuddled baby keeps bouncing skyward. We do not see the cause of his soarings: is baby Garp being tossed up by his mother, or is he already on the great trampoline of life, treading air before even walking the earth?… Tesich and Hill keep moving things along: if you don't like [a particular] scene, never mind, there'll be another one along in a jiffy.

Certain elements are handled more suavely than in the book, without, however, being shirked, e.g., the inadvertent emasculation by fellatio during the car crash. A potentially sticky character, such as Robert/Roberta, the transsexual football player, emerges charming…. Even young Garp's fantasy about his aeronautical father's epic demise, done as a cartoon sequence partly drawn and partly dreamed by the child, comes off with flying colors. And though there are countless clever children pullulating throughout the movie, they do not, individually or collectively, sour us on their sweetness.

There are, however, less pleasant aspects. Garp, the delectable wrestler, writer, cook, and clown, is played by Robin Williams merely adequately…. (pp. 1096-97)

Most of the supporting roles are well handled, and Irving himself makes a congenial cameo appearance as a wrestling referee. Miroslav Ondriček's unassumingly authoritative cinematography makes the most of some extremely well-chosen locations. And, as I said, the film moves right along. But, as I also said, it is Edelkitsch or, anglice, garpage. (p. 1097)