What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

So, this is one of the few movies where Johnny Depp acts as a normal guy. You can see how good-looking he is in this movie! He acted in this film when he was younger. So far, the Johnny Depp movies that I’ve watched were Edward Scissorhands, Secret Window, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sleepy Hollow, Chocolat, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Almost in all those movies, his characters were odd and unusual.

So, Depp is Gilbert Grape in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?”. What’s eating the guy, huh? He thinks his life is a complete misery. He has 3 other siblings. The youngest brother (Leonardo DiCaprio), Arnie, is a bit mentally-challenged and needs to be watched most of the time. If not, he’ll always be up to no good and get into trouble. For example, he loves to climb a water tower somewhere in their neighbourhood and the police will come to persuade him to come back down. DiCaprio played the Arnie character really well! That was when he was much younger too.

Gilbert’s mother is also obese and eats a lot. She never leaves the house anymore and is literally stuck to the couch in front of the television. Gilbert said that she used to be pretty in her younger days but since their father committed suicide years ago, she started to eat her feelings. When she finally stepped out of her house just once, the people in town stared at her like they have never seen her before. Well, they don’t see her much anyway. But it was very rude of them to stare!

Besides that, Gilbert is also having an affair with a married woman, Betty! She has two sons and quite a nice husband but maybe she’s not so happy with him and finds it more exciting to be with Gilbert. Their relationship deteriorated when a new girl, Becky (Juliette Lewis), appeared in town.

Gilbert is seen as being a selfish son who’s ashamed of his mother and allows other people to make fun of her. His life is kind of complicated and he’s already making it worse, that is by getting involved with a married woman. But when Becky came into the picture, he confides in her and she helps him understand himself and his family better.

It’s a nice movie, a great one for the whole family to watch together. Arnie’s escapades are quite funny. I enjoyed watching DiCaprio act as Arnie. That one was really fascinating.