Rating: PG13
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 06/20/2006
Flags: Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Sexual Situations
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
Swedish director
Lasse Hallstrom's follow-up to the underrated
Once Around earned far more attention than its predecessor thanks to the judicious casting of perennial thinking woman's heartthrob
Johnny Depp and a certain up-and-coming thespian by the name of
Leonardo DiCaprio. A prisoner of his dysfunctional family's broken dreams in tiny Endora, IA,
Gilbert (
Depp) serves as breadwinner and caretaker for his mother and siblings following his father's suicide and his older brother's defection.
Momma (
Darlene Cates) is a morbidly obese shut-in who hasn't left the house in seven years; her children include retarded
Arnie (
DiCaprio), who's about to turn 18 despite a host of negative medical forecasts, and terminally embarrassed
Ellen (
Mary Kate Schellhardt), who's emerging from an awkward adolescence. When he's not taking care of the difficult but tender
Arnie,
Gilbert spends his time fixing up the family's tattered farmhouse, working at a failing mom-and-pop grocery store and hanging with local misfits
Bobby (
Crispin Glover), an overly ambitious junior undertaker, and
Tucker (
John C. Reilly), a handyman who hankers after a job at the new burger franchise. Into this complicated but essentially unchanging social universe steps
Becky (
Juliette Lewis), a thoughtful young woman who's been escorting her nomadic grandmother from state to state in a mobile-home caravan. As
Becky teaches
Gilbert to finally consider his own happiness for a change, she disrupts both his family obligations and his long-running affair with a lonely housewife (
Mary Steenburgen). Adapted by
Peter Hedges from his own novel of the same name,
What's Eating Gilbert Grape was the first and only film role for non-actress
Cates, whom the filmmakers discovered on an episode of the
Sally Jesse Raphael Show titled "Too Heavy to Leave Their House."
~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
;)
