Forrest: I don’t recall what I got for my first Christmas, I don’t know when I went on my first outdoor picnic. But I do remember the first time I heard the sweetest voice in the wide world.

[Flashback to school bus]

Jenny [O.S.]: You can sit here if you want.

Forrest sees Jenny for the first time.

Forrest [V.O.]: I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

— Forrest (Tom Hanks), Jenny (Hanna Hall), Forrest Gump (1994), screenplay by Eric Roth, based on the novel by Winston Groom

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is flashbacks, suggested by Alexander Gorelik.

Trivia: Warner Bros. gave up the rights to the film in 1988, in exchange for the rights to Executive Decision, because the studio felt that the project had lost its commercial promise in the wake of Rain Man.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Three A-list screenwriters tried to adapt the project and failed. Then Eric Roth read the book and the writers’ three drafts, then told the producers, “I know what the problem is. No love story.” He made the Forrest-Jenny subplot the emotional centerpiece of the story. Here is the first beat in the that subplot. Straight from the start, it establishes that Forrest is smitten by Jenny.