Carver ( Mary Steenburgen), a lonely housewife who is always much less lonely after Gilbert's visits. On his delivery rounds for the grocery store, he makes frequent stops at the home of Mrs. Gilbert, who appears to be around 21 years old, hangs out with other guys his age, drinking coffee and making small talk and quizzing Bobby about the undertaking business. We can see both why he's almost impossible to life with, and why Gilbert and the rest of the Grapes choose to, with love.įor all of their resiliency, however, the Grapes seem stuck in a rut in Endora. His performance succeeds in being both convincing and likable. Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Arnie, the retarded kid brother, has been nominated for an Academy Award, and deserves it. Johnny Depp, as Gilbert, has specialized in playing outsiders (" Edward Scissorhands," "Benny and Joon"), and here he brings a quiet, gentle sweetness that suffuses the whole film. The special quality of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" is not its oddness, however, but its warmth. His credits include "My Life as a Dog" (1985), about a young boy's coming of age amid eccentric Swedish rural people and first love and the underrated 1991 film " Once Around," in which Richard Dreyfuss married into a family that was appalled by his abrasiveness. The movie, written by Peter Hedges and based on his novel, has been directed by a Scandinavian, Lasse Hallstrom, for whom families seem to exert a special pull. But when kids from the neighborhood sneak around to peek at the fat lady in the living room, Gilbert sometimes gives them a boost up to the window. Nor does the film take them with tragic seriousness it is a problem, yes, to have a retarded younger brother.Īnd it is a problem to have a mother so fat she never leaves the house. "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" makes of these materials one of the most enchanting movies of the year, a story of people who aren't misfits only because they don't see themselves that way. In a big city, we sense, the Grape family would be isolated and dysfunctional, but in Endora, where everybody knows everybody and Gilbert fits right in, life is more possible, and the family is at least quasifunctional. Gilbert Grape is more or less equal to these challenges, but life is not easy for him.
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