Title: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Cast: Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, John
C. Reily, Crispin Glover, Mary Steenburgen, Darlene Cates
Review:
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a film that talks about how
life can be strange, beautiful and tragic all rolled into one and how sometimes
there’s not much we can do about it. Sometimes, those are the cards we are dealt
and what’s left for us to do is just try and survive as best we can through it
while we are trying to make sense of it all. In this film we meet Gilbert Grape,
a young man who’s lost his father, has an obese mother, two bitchy sisters and a
mentally challenged brother called Arnie; so Gilbert doesn’t exactly enjoy a happy
family life. It’s not that he doesn’t love his family, in fact; he is portrayed
as someone who loves his entire family even though they sometimes drive him
nuts. He’s the kind of guy who’ll take care of everyone else before taking care
of himself. He forgets to make himself happy, but this is not entirely his
fault, his brother Arnie takes up a lot of his time, Arnie needs Gilbert to
survive. So in a way, Gilbert is kind of like a male version of Amelie (2004),
you remember that one? That’s the French film about a girl named Amelie, she
would help everyone, but always forgot to make herself happy. She didn’t even
have time to find love, until she made time for it. This film follows a similar
structure. Gilbert is the ultimate do gooder.
This is the kind of film that’s all about small town life.
The film takes place in a fictional town called ‘Endora’. Gilbert is always
complaining, saying how much he wants to leave Endora because not a whole lot
happens there. If you ask me, I’d love to live there; the whole place is kind
of like a paradise? The entire film was beautifully shot in Texas, and
honestly, it made me want to live there, it’s that kind of film, its locations are
so beautiful, you’ll wish you were there. But of course, the main character
takes it for granted. I guess Gilbert wants out of Endora because
to him, Endora is well, the name of the town says it all, it's End-ora. I guess Endora is representative of the quintessential dead end town. We
always want what we don’t got, the fat want to be skinny, the poor want to be
rich, the rich want to know about common people…and Gilbert wants out of Endora.
I understand Gilbert though, I mean, here he is, in the prime of his youth and
he is working in a local supermarket that’s on the brink of closing down.
When Gilbert goes back home, he goes to a dysfunctional family,
now here is the true reason for Gilbert’s unhappiness. He finds himself trapped
with taking care of his mother and his mentally challenged brother Arnie,
masterfully played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Now here’s something you need to know
about this movie, this is one of DiCaprio’s finest performances. It’s not an
easy thing to play a mentally challenged individual, when done wrong, it can go
horribly wrong. An example of this is Sean
Penn in I Am Sam (2001) a movie I despise because to me Sean Penn didn’t really
sell me the performance; to me it looked like Penn simply playing 'stupid', not a convincing performance at all. But DiCaprio’s Arnie? Now we are talking!
Now here’s a convincing performance! To be honest, when this film first came
out in 1993, DiCaprio was just getting started in his career and I didn’t know
who the hell he was yet. I actually thought they had used a mentally challenged
actor to do this performance, it is that convincing!
DiCaprio did extensive research for his performance, which
is why it comes off as so believable; he actually spent some time in a home for
mentally challenged teenagers. DiCaprio’s performance did not go unnoticed; he was
nominated for many awards that year, he was even nominated for an Academy Award
in the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ category. Sadly, DiCaprio’s nomination was one
of those times when an actor should have won the Oscar but didn’t. You know,
like that year in which Ellen Burstyn was nominated for her amazing performance
in Requiem for a Dream (2000) but ended up losing to Julia Roberts for her
performance in Erin Brockovich (2000)? And you’re left saying “whaaaat?!” Well,
that year, Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for playing Arnie, but lost to Tommy
Lee Jones for his performance in The Fugitive (1993), can you believe it? One
look at DiCaprio on What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and I’m sure you’ll agree with
me, it’s one of his best performances ever, truly memorable, he got me to feel for Arnie. I doubt you even remember Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive,
but after seeing Arnie in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, I doubt you’ll forget
the performance. The chemistry between Arnie and Gilbert is great, loved seeing
Depp and DiCaprio performing together.
But then again all the performances on this film are
outstanding in my book. Darlene Cates, the actress they chose to play Gilbert’s
obese mother, she was chosen after Peter Hodges, the author of the book the
film is based on saw Cates appearance in an episode of the Sally Jessy Raphael
show. The show’s theme was “Too Heavy to Leave Their House”. Hodges saw a tape
of the show and immediately offered the role of Bonnie Grape to Mrs. Cates, who
accepted. Now this was not an easy role to accept because it’s a role that
would address her real life obesity and the way that people react to it. There
are many scenes where Momma goes out on the street and people stare at her or
make fun of her as if she was some sort of freak. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for
her to film these scenes. To me, this actress is a brave soul for recognizing
her problem and not being afraid to address it through her performance. Depp
himself apologized to the actress after filming some of his lines. So my hats
off to this fine actress, she actually got to me; she was completely vulnerable
and honest in her performance and that calls for appreciation.
The film is sprinkled with a great supporting cast. Mary
Steenburgen plays the desperate housewife looking for some action with Gilbert.
John C. Reilly plays this guy who wants to open up a fast food franchise called
“Burger Barn”; he swears it’s the best kind of food. That’s something else the
film touches upon, how big businesses are gulping up small ones. Then we have
Crispin Glover playing the town mortician, basically, it’s one of those movies
that is filled with all these characters that make up the town folk. Finally we
have Juliette Lewis playing the role of a girl who travels across the United
States on a camper with her grandma. When she and Gilbert meet, sparks fly. She
offers him something he’d been missing all his life, a breath of fresh air,
some love and understanding. Juliette Lewis glows on this movie. So what we got
here is a bitter sweet movie filled with some wonderfully happy moments and some
terribly dark ones as well, kind of like life. It’s a film that teaches us to
take the good with the bad.
5 comments:
See...I told ya leo was nominated. Great film.
No you said he had won the Oscar...he didn't win, sadly. He should have though...
In the early 90`s a new 'Brat Pack' was emerging: Depp, DeCaprio, Winona, Juliette lewis, Samantha Mathis, A.J. Langer, Clare Danes, Devon Odessa, Jared Leto, Devon Gumersall, Parker Posey and others, they`ve all had varying levels of success over the last 20 years but now some of them seem to have faded from the picture completely (or almost anyway), its strange how some stars seem to have staying power and others seem to just disappear from veiw altogether (relatively speaking).
Poor Leo... I too think this was one of his finest performances. But everything else about this movie was great too.
I do understand why Gilbert wanted to move from his town too. He wanted to move from the known, and mainly I think from his family too. Not the persons, but their flaws, maybe he flaws in his own life too.
Jennifer: Yeah, some of that 90's brat pack have made it far, DiCaprio for example became one of the biggest movie stars of his time, But Wynona Ryder for example, she faded...I guess it's just the nature of the beast when it comes to acting, some stick, some just dissappear.
Mette: He seemed to at one moment dream of what he wanted, thats why I like that scene in which Juliette Lewis's character asks Gilbert what he wants, and he mentions things that he would like to improve for his family, and then she tells him, no, what do you want for yourself? Great scene.
Agree, his family was extremely disfunctional, anyone would want to get away from that, but the film also plays with that idea that though your family might be the worst one ever, it's still your family. A deep movie with many layers to it. Thanks for your comments Mette.
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