Why I love Robin Williams’ per­for­mance in The World Accord­ing to Garp

Robin Williams dis­plays a remark­able emo­tion­al range with seem­ing­ly lit­tle effort as the lead char­ac­ter in George Roy Hill’s 1982 dram­e­dy The World Accord­ing to Garp. He doesn’t appear until the begin­ning of the sec­ond act, but he remains ground­ed at the cen­tre of the film for the dura­tion. While the uncon­ven­tion­al sto­ry unfolds and colour­ful char­ac­ters come and go at a quick and steady pace, Williams’ per­for­mance keeps the audi­ence engaged and on track.

TS Garp (Ter­ri­bly Sexy, Ter­ri­bly Shy, or Ter­ri­bly Sad depend­ing on the moment) is a writer liv­ing in the shad­ow of his fem­i­nist icon moth­er. Garp was Williams’ sec­ond star­ring role in a motion pic­ture – at the time, he was best known for the tele­vi­sion show Mork and Mindy, a sur­prise hit that derived its ener­gy from Williams’ unique brand of hyper-ener­getic impro­vi­sa­tion­al comedy.

In Garp, Hill reined in Williams, keep­ing him close­ly tied to the script and his impro­vi­sa­tions to a min­i­mum. Williams was the straight man, let­ting the odd incit­ing inci­dents of the film and the sharp, dead­pan dia­logue of oth­er actors draw the laughs. In so doing, Williams tapped into a deep­er lev­el of his tal­ent, draw­ing the view­er into the love and heartache, com­e­dy and tragedy of Garp’s life.

Garp’s moth­er, devot­ed nurse Jen­ny Fields (Glenn Close), looms large over him. Garp grows up with­out a father because his moth­er didn’t want a hus­band, only a man’s sperm so she could have a child. Dur­ing the war, she took advan­tage of a dying flier’s incur­able pri­apism to get her­self preg­nant. She rais­es Garp her­self, per­fect­ly com­fort­able in her deci­sion to be a sin­gle moth­er. She is hon­est with her son about his con­cep­tion and dis­plays lit­tle tol­er­ance or sym­pa­thy for his nat­ur­al curios­i­ty about his father.

Williams evokes all the shades of resent­ment and frus­tra­tion that come from grow­ing up in Jenny’s shad­ow. When her hasti­ly writ­ten mem­oir becomes a sen­sa­tion and cat­a­pults her to the fore­front of the fem­i­nist move­ment he wal­lows in resent­ment. He puts up a brave front, com­plete with a skin-deep smile and hunched shoul­ders, when he is recog­nised in pub­lic not for his own nov­el, but for being the ​“bas­tard son of Jen­ny Fields.” The frus­tra­tion is under­stat­ed, but any­one who has ever felt unap­pre­ci­at­ed in life can see it quite clearly.

Garp’s dejec­tion becomes anger because no one is buy­ing his book, yet Jenny’s best sell­ing tome has been trans­lat­ed into Apache. He deject­ed­ly tells his wife Helen (Mary Beth Hurt) ​“Not even Shake­speare or Dick­ens has been trans­lat­ed into Apache.” She soothes his mood when she reveals she is preg­nant. Preg­nan­cy rev­e­la­tions in film can eas­i­ly drift into cliché with their oblig­a­tory tears, joy, and surprise.

This one isn’t all that dif­fer­ent. How­ev­er, Williams plau­si­bly makes a wide arc in this scene from unquench­able jeal­ousy to pater­nal expec­ta­tion and pride. It makes Garp’s tran­si­tion into the hap­py house hus­band and fam­i­ly man believable.

Helen, aside from being Garp’s artis­tic cham­pi­on, is a col­lege lit­er­a­ture pro­fes­sor and the fam­i­ly bread­win­ner who makes his life pos­si­ble. Garp loves the arrange­ment – he enjoys tak­ing care of the house and prepar­ing fam­i­ly meals com­plete with food-stained aprons and mashed pota­toes. His joy is bare­ly con­tained as he excit­ed­ly shares adven­tures and plans with the boys. It’s a stark con­trast to Helen, who lis­tens qui­et­ly while tamp­ing down her lust for her hand­some but emp­ty-head­ed stu­dent Michael Mil­ton (Mark Soper).

The joy­ous fam­i­ly man per­sona evap­o­rates when Garp learns of Helen’s affair – his anger is pal­pa­ble and unpre­dictable. He leaves home with the boys, impa­tient­ly shov­ing them through din­ner and a movie. This is a Garp we have not seen, cer­tain­ly not the man who expe­ri­enced pro­found joy in sim­ply watch­ing his kids sleep. Despite the tragedy that ensues, hus­band and wife even­tu­al­ly rec­on­cile, bring­ing their sto­ry arc full circle.

Garp like­wise brings things full cir­cle with Jen­ny. As he matures and set­tles into his fam­i­ly life, Garp sheds his jeal­ousy of his mother’s suc­cess. Instead, he is jeal­ous for more of her time and wants to be her pro­tec­tor. Jenny’s life is absorbed in help­ing the com­mu­ni­ty of bro­ken souls that have amassed around her at the fam­i­ly com­pound, and Garp is open­ly con­cerned that all these new peo­ple are tak­ing advan­tage of his mother.

At heart, though, we get the sense in his med­i­ta­tive moments that Garp yearns for the nos­tal­gia of the qui­et home of his youth and for his mother’s undi­vid­ed atten­tion that he once felt smoth­ered by. In their last scene togeth­er, he tells her, ​“I nev­er need­ed a father.”

Through­out the film, Williams ably com­mu­ni­cates Garp’s emo­tion­al pres­ence in phys­i­cal ways beyond dia­logue. When Garp’s trans­gen­der friend Rober­ta (John Lith­gow) casu­al­ly kiss­es him good­bye on the lips, Garp’s face reg­is­ters shock, con­fu­sion, and accep­tance all in rapid suc­ces­sion. The brief moment hap­pens in the back­ground of a shot that is focused on Helen and Jen­ny and is eas­i­ly missed on first viewing.

Anoth­er more direct moment near the film’s end finds Garp in sad reflec­tion, per­haps sens­ing that tragedy is approach­ing. When the phone rings with the news of his mother’s death, Garp’s agony ris­es to the sur­face. A life­time of sor­row over mis­placed resent­ments and missed oppor­tu­ni­ties for a stronger con­nec­tion become evi­dent in the pain on his face with­out a word being spoken.