Movie · 1982 · Drama, Comedy · 2h 16m · R · English
Curator score: 4.6/10 (48.2K ratings)
Robin Williams is Garp. He's got a funny way of looking at life.
Overview
A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.6/10
IMDb: 7.1/10
Letterboxd: 3.48/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 71%
Metacritic: 63
TMDB: 6.7/10
Director
George Roy Hill
Production
Pan Arts, Warner Bros. Pictures
Cast
Robin Williams, Mary Beth Hurt, Glenn Close, John Lithgow, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Swoosie Kurtz, Brenda Currin, Peter Michael Goetz, Jenny Wright, John Irving, Amanda Plummer, Bette Henritze, Katherine Borowitz, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Mark Soper, Warren Berlinger, Brandon Maggart, Victor Magnotta, Al Cerullo
Curator Review
Verdict
A strange, sincere, and often very funny 80s literary drama that thrives on eccentric performances and big ideas, but its shaggy structure and uneven tonal shifts will test patience. Worth it if you like offbeat prestige adaptations and don’t mind a movie that feels more like a collage of episodes than a clean narrative.
Best for
fans of literary adaptations
viewers who like oddball 1980s dramas
people drawn to strong supporting performances
audiences interested in feminist and family dynamics
Robin Williams completists
Skip if
you need a tight, streamlined plot
you dislike tonal whiplash
you want a straightforward comedy
you’re impatient with long, meandering character studies
Overview
The World According to Garp is one of those movies that feels slightly unruly in the moment and more memorable the longer you sit with it. It has the scale and confidence of an old-school studio drama, but it keeps veering into the bizarre, the tragic, and the darkly comic without ever fully settling into one lane. That instability is part of its appeal, even when it makes the film feel overlong.
Worth noting
Robin Williams plays Garp with a mix of warmth and guarded awkwardness, but the movie’s real shockwave is Glenn Close, whose performance gives the film its emotional and ideological center. John Lithgow also makes a huge impression in a role that is both comic and deeply unsettling. The cast is strong across the board, and the film has the kind of lived-in, slightly messy ensemble energy that makes 1980s prestige dramas so watchable.
Bottom line
It’s not a movie for everyone: the structure is episodic, the satire can feel blunt, and some of its provocations have aged unevenly. But if you’re open to a film that is sincere, strange, and occasionally brilliant in the same breath, it has a lot to offer. It’s a curious, ambitious adaptation that lingers because it never quite behaves like the movie you expect it to be.
Top Letterboxd reviews
russman (2★) · 365 likes
Garpe diem
Kylo (2★) · 142 likes
I came for Robin Williams and Glenn Close, but in the end, it was John Lithgow who stole the spotlight in this overly long and bizarre film.
Adam Kempenaar (5★) · 113 likes
What do you say about a movie that feels like a part of you?
I don't even know if that makes sense.
Guess I'll have to figure it out before taping The Cinephiliacs.
Wood (2★) · 96 likes
Not sure I needed to see a super long, front to back biopic about a fake person that isn't very interesting. But Robin Williams is good.
📀 Cammmalot 📀 (3★) · 81 likes
Cinematic Time Capsule1982 Marathon - Film #79
”It’s been pre-disastered”
John Lithgow’s brilliant Oscar nominated performance had me immediately thinking wow, what a wonderfully progressive movie.
Then just a couple of scene’s later the 30-year-old Garp says, “18… Is there any word in the English language as sexy as that?“ 🫤
”You have one hell of a way of making converts to civilization”
Cinematic Time Capsule - 1982 Ranked