The World According to Garp is a intriguing tale about an unorthodox family in a twisted world, told in an episodic fashion through the eyes of one T.S.Garp, whom Robin Williams portrays with such easiness you’d think the movie was written with especially him in mind.

It’s that other early 80s movie based on novel by John Irving, and clearly the superior one of the two. While it does suffer from the same problem of trying to cram in a whole whopping novel into a film, given the challenges involved the end result is very admirable and the movie feels much longer than its running time – in a good way.

The World According to Garp is an prime example how the written fiction and movies sometimes manage to create a world of entirely their own: It might be far fetched, improbable, even implausible make belive – but boy, if the narrator knows his stuff we really want to buy it all.

80s-o-meter: 55%

Total: 80%