What’s Eating Gilbert Grape **** (1993, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, Mary Steenburgen) – Classic Movie Review 593

Director Lasse Hallström‘s deliciously sweet movie from 1993 is an enormously appealing heart-warmer. In a bit of a potential minefield, it doesn’t ever put a foot wrong.

Johnny Depp stars as Gilbert Grape, who lives in Endora, Iowa, with his 36-stone mother Bonnie (Darlene Cates), his mentally troubled 17-year-old kid brother Arnie (Oscar-nominated Leonardo DiCaprio) and two hapless sisters, Ellen (Mary Kate Schellhardt) and Amy (Laura Harrington).

While working in the town’s slowly dying convenience store and hanging out with his buddies Tucker Van Dyke (John C Reilly), who’s planning a fast-food joint, and the local undertaker Bobby McBurney (Crispin Glover), Gilbert is having an affair with the desperate married, middle-aged Betty Carver (Mary Steenburgen), whose husband Ken (Kevin Tighe) wants to sell Gilbert insurance.

Then the endlessly kookie free spirit Becky (Juliette Lewis) arrives in town from Michigan along with her grandmother (Penelope Branning), stranded there for the week while waiting for parts for their vehicle. Becky, of course, proves the exact match for Gilbert, but he has to care for Arnie and his mother.

Such oddball material like this takes delicate writing, special actors and dedicated handling, and miraculously it gets all three. Both Peter Hedges (adapting his original source novel) and Depp go to it with tender care in a most engaging, infectious way.

Depp is lovely, DiCaprio is enormously winning, Steenburgen gives a captivating portrait of menopausal craziness and Lewis is appealing as the all-knowing child woman, while Cates is touching as the morbidly obese mother who finally rises up from her sofa when DiCaprio gets arrested.

Director Lasse Hallström handles it all sympathetically, sensitively and lovingly, pulling all the elements together beautifully, and Sven Nykvist’s eye catching cinematography is a gorgeous icing on the cake.

(C) Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Film Review 593 derekwinnert.com