Juliette Lewis,
Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio; Photo courtesy of Paramount/The
Kobal Collection
You think your family is hard to live
with? Just spend a couple of hours with Gilbert Grape's kinfolk.
Actually, the Grape family isn't strictly
dysfunctional. Sure, they have a lot of problems, but what
family doesn't? But they've managed to develop a workable
routine to care for their obese and reclusive mom and special needs
brother.
Johnny Depp, a three-time best actor nominee
(as Sweeney Todd in "Sweeney Todd" in 2007; J.M. Barrie in "Finding Neverland" in 2005; and as Capt. Jack Sparrow in
"Pirates of the Caribbean" in 2004), is particularly
poignant as Gilbert. He struggles daily with the dead ends,
both financial and personal, of small-town life. Also eating
at Gilbert are his conflicting desires to escape Endora, Iowa,
or stay and continue to be big brother/surrogate dad to his
developmentally challenged brother Arnie, a role that earned
Leonardo DiCaprio a supporting actor nomination. (DiCaprio
picked up his first best-actor Oscar nod this year for his
portrayal of "The Aviator" Howard Hughes.)
Gilbert's caretaker
responsibility is further complicated by the dim financial
prospects at his grocery store job. A new supermarket is slowly
killing the small corner store. To top it off, Gilbert discovers
that the aging family house
is literally falling down around him and his siblings.
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Throughout it all, the Grapes manage to
cope with an amazing amount of good humor in the face of their
challenges. But because the family is endearingly offbeat,
you want more for them. Watching "What's Eating Gilbert
Grape?," you wish you could make its characters see the film's
money message: Set your family down,
discuss your financial needs and develop a plan to meet them
before they reach the crisis stage.
A little fiscal forethought, especially
when it came to Arnie's special
needs, certainly could have made life a lot easier for
the whole bunch of Grapes.
