What's Eating Gilbert Grape [Blu-ray]

Director: Lasse Hallstrom Lasse Hallstrom

Overview

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."

Product Details

Release Date:	08/16/2022
UPC:	0191329226919
Original Release:	1993
Source:	Paramount
Language:	English
Time:	1:57:00
Sales rank:	12,691

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Johnny Depp	Gilbert Grape
Leonardo DiCaprio	Arnie Grape
Juliette Lewis	Becky
Mary Steenburgen	Betty Carver
Darlene Cates	Momma
Laura Harrington	Amy Grape
Mary Kate Schellhardt	Ellen Grape
Kevin Tighe	Mr. Carver
John C. Reilly	Tucker Van Dyke
Crispin Glover	Bobby McBurney
Penelope Branning	Becky's Grandma
Gail Levin	Actor
Tim Green	Mr. Lamson
Susan Loughran	Mrs. Lamson
Robert B. Hedges	Reverend
Mark Jordan	Todd Carver
Cameron Finley	Doug Carver
Brady Coleman	Sheriff Farrel
Tim Simek	Deputy
Björn Isfält	Composer
Alan Parker	Composer
Nicholas Stojanovich	Boy #1
Libby Villari	Waitress
Kay Bower	Police Secretary
Joe Stevens	Burger Barn Manager
Mona Lee Fultz	FoodLand Bakery Worker
George Haynes	Dave
Daniel Gullahorn	Boy #2
Brent Bratton	Burger Barn Employee
Kirk Hunter	Townfolk
David Stanford	Townsperson
David H. Kramer	Group

Technical Credits

Peter Hedges

Lasse Hallstrom	Director,Producer
Alan Blomquist	Executive Producer,Producer
Gail Levin	Casting
David Matalon	Producer
Bertil Ohlsson	Producer
Meir Teper	Producer
Peter Hedges	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Charmingly offbeat and low-key, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? focuses on the plight of its eponymous protagonist, a young man who’d love nothing more than to leave his dysfunctional family and sleepy rural community. But Gilbert, played with warmth and sensitivity by Johnny Depp, is restrained by a sense of duty to his morbidly obese mother (Darlene Cates) and mentally handicapped younger brother (Leonardo DiCaprio, who snagged an Oscar nomination for his eye-opening turn). He can’t bring himself to bolt, even when his older lover (Mary Steenburgen) announces that she’s going to leave him behind. Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat) exhibits a surprising affinity for small-town America, which he depicts in an occasionally unflattering but generally accurate manner. His efforts are most readily apparent in the performances of his principal players, who are uniformly excellent. Depp anchors the film, but DiCaprio and Juliette Lewis -- playing a trailer-park teen who gets Gilbert on the rebound -- provide rock-solid support, and Cates (a nonactor whom Hallstrom discovered on a talk show) is almost unbearably poignant as a character who’s as pitiable as she is unsympathetic. Neither as grotesque or flamboyant as other films that have traversed similar dramatic byways, Gilbert Grape lingers in memory, owing to the honesty with which it portrays the primary characters and the constricted world they inhabit.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

This tender but unflinching examination of the tension between individual happiness and family obligation neatly condenses a large ensemble, a lengthy backstory and a lot of subtext into two delightfully cinematic hours. Just a touch of voice-over from leading man Johnny Depp sets the stage for a story that is told from his character's viewpoint even as it takes in a host of supporting players and deals with such tangential issues as frustrated infidelity and the strip-malling of America. After his roguish turn in This Boy's Life, Leonardo DiCaprio made his name as a serious young actor with his top-notch work as the retarded Arnie; spot-on physical and vocal mannerisms broadcast DiCaprio's technical prowess, but his performance here has the sort of emotional undertow and sly, if childlike, intelligence that has eluded other actors as accomplished as Dustin Hoffman in similar roles. Non-actress Darlene Cates is fantastic as the manipulative yet ultimately dignified and sympathetic Momma, while the supporting cast, from John C. Reilly and Crispin Glover to Juliette Lewis and Mary Streenburgen, provides comic asides, thoughtful interludes, and catharsis upon command. In the end, though, it's Depp and director Lasse Hallstrom who hold it all together, the former actually using his soulful eyes instead of coasting on the beauty of his gravity-defying cheekbones, the latter deftly balancing pathos and contemplation and keeping his large cast and story in line.

All Movie Guide - Brian J. Dillard

One of the most enchanting movies of the year.

Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert

All tics, flailings, and full-open, drooling laughter, DiCaprio seems to have captured the damaged heart and soul of Arnie Grape. Marc Savlov

Austin Chronicle