What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a movie I might have seen before, or I might have only seen bits and pieces of. But I knew enough to know it was the movie that made most people notice Leonardo DiCarprio for the first time. And finally sitting down to watch it properly, at least 15 years since the last time I saw a single frame of it, DiCaprio’s performance lost none of its impact.
Both Gilbert’s narration and the look of the town itself paint Endora as the Iowan equivalent of the dead end wasteland town in Peter Bogdonavich’s The Last Picture Show. It’s the kind of town that if you don’t escape the second you finish high school, you’re probably stuck there forever. Gilbert and his friends, played by John C Reilly and Crispin Glover, are the ones who didn’t make it out.
Depp stumbles through What’s Eating Gilbert Grape in a haze. He has been worn down by taking care of his family, especially Arnie, ever since their father died. He aimlessly works at the local supermarket that won’t last much longer against the big chain store on the edge of town. He passively has an affair with Mary Steenburgen’s local middle aged hotty and aimlessly waits for life to just be over. Until he meets Julliette Lewis and starts to realise he can take control of his life and maybe make it better. It’s weird to think there was a time when someone though it was believable to cast Juliette Lewis as the love interest opposite Johnny Depp. Oh well, I guess it was a different time all the way back in the early 90s.
Arnie is definitely the heart of the movie and ihe heart of Endora. Gilbert’s boss at the local grocery store lets the childlike Arnie basically just hang out and get in the way. When the police finally have to arrest Arnie for climbing the local water tower for what is obviously the latest of many times, you can see how reluctant and apologetic they are that it finally came to this. DiCaprio is out and out amazing as Arnie. It’s easy for actors to go over the top with sort of role, but somehow DiCaprio manages to be big and broad, but really subtle and real at the same time.
The only downside to his performance is, it’s easy to forget everyone else who does a great job in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Depp delivers the kind of normal, quiet performance that seems less and less likely we’ll ever see from him again. John C Reilly and Crispin Glover are the perfect goofy friends and Gilbert’s mother, played by Darlene Cates in her one and only film, is pretty heartbreaking. It’s a small movie that will probably be remembered for DiCarpio’s more than impressive breakthrough. And it is an amazing break through. But that’s almost a shame, because the rest of the movie around Arnie is great too.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
Directed By – Lasse Hallstrom
Written By – Peter Hedges
Bored and Dangerous 
Sounds like you may have actually cried during this film.