What's Eating Gilbert Grape

Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, the 1993 drama ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ stars Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis, and Leonardo DiCaprio. It’s an adaptation from Peter Hedges’ novel, who also wrote the screenplay for the movie.

The movie is based in a small fictitious town called Endora, Iowa. The movie is about Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) a young guy who lives with his mentally handicapped brother (Leonardo DiCaprio), two sisters and obese mother who hasn’t left the house in over seven years. The responsibility of taking care of the family is rested upon Gilbert’s shoulders. When we start watching the movie, the title makes sense; we see what’s eating him. It’s everything around him.

Even though the plot is predictable to a certain extent, the movie succeeds in holding our interest throughout the movie mainly because of the solid performances by Depp and DiCaprio. DiCaprio does an impressive job capturing the character of mentally handicapped Arnie, Gilbert Grape’s brother. He does an indescribably awesome job that for a moment you forget it’s DiCaprio; he is so convincing that, you feel its Arnie himself. Too bad he did not win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for which he was nominated for the performance in this movie. Johnny Depp does a good job in bringing out the character of Gilbert Grape as a young guy who does not think much of his own future out of the town he lives. On the same note Juliette Lewis’ performance as Becky, the young girl who happens come to the town, is also praise worthy.

There is nothing much complex or confusing about this movie. At least not on the part of its plot. This simplicity is one of the key things about this movie which appealed to me. With the kind of story line this movie has, if it had a complex plot it might very well have been really boring. But the characters are somewhat complex. For instance Gilbert is a very complex character we cannot understand easily. He does things the society might consider wrong, but he has every intention of being a good person. He’s trapped in this small town with his family and the other relationships he has and there is no way of getting out of it. His sense of responsibility is what keeps him trapped (not that it’s a bad thing). The movie poster says “Life is a terrible thing to sleep through”; so it’s good to see him taking control of his life without letting life do its worse for him.

Since the movie is based on a small town, it’s shot in a very bucolic kind of an area. This rural setting too adds a subtle awesomeness to the movie. There’s not much of a movie score to talk about, but there is a constant “theme music” kind of a thing that runs throughout the movie in various instances and this goes perfectly with the setting and the dialogues of the movie. Obviously this movie is not a tearjerker, but it is definitely a heartwarming sentimental story.