[The World According to Garp] begins with the infant son of the dead tail-gunner being tossed into the sky; it ends with the grown Garp dying in the sky, in an ambulance helicopter, and then there's a repeat of the opening infant shot.

This is one of several attempts by Hill and his colleague Tesich to evolve patterns from the novel and to underscore ones that already exist in the book. Examples: Garp's college girl friend, Helen, sees another girl practicing fellatio on him; later, years after Helen and Garp are married, his car accidentally rams another car in which she is practicing fellatio on a student of hers. Early in the film, a sniper is shot out of a tree before he can shoot Garp's mother at a public meeting; later, another sniper gets her; still later, Garp is shot—by the vindictive sister of the first...