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I'm sorry to say I waited 12 years to watch this great movie

Man, am I sorry I waited 12 years to watch "What's Eating Gilbert Grape". What a moving movie with an all star cast - Johnny Depp, Mary Steenburgen, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, Kevin Tighe and more.I've seriously avoided "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", figuring it was a stupid movie with poor acting (even though I really like most of Johnny Depp's work, as well as Mary Steenburgen) and a poor plot and storyline. I've never been more wrong."What's Eating Gilbert Grape" is a drama with some comedic moments. You quickly learn to feel sorry for Gilbert Grape because, at an earlier than normal age, adult responsibilities (including some that adults run away from) are thrust upon him. It's a great story of how Gilbert handles all the issues in his and his family's life. Simply terrific!

I've just seen 'What's eating Gilbert Grape?

I've thought for a long time what an underrated actor Leonardo DiCaprio is and this film has just reinforced this for me. I have a young son with Learning difficulties and Leonardos character in this film reminded me so much of my son it made me cry. My son actually looks like Leonardo which makes the resemblance so much more, but he has really captured the character amazingly. I hated Titantic and was very disappointed that Leonardo was in it but he was still good in it, but The Departed was a fantastic film and he deserved best actor for it. I really hope Leonardo continues to be offered great parts and that he gets the credit he deserves for being one of the best actors this century. Gilbert Grape is such a lovely film. Its so nice to see a film where the characters are like real people who are genuine and caring. Johnny Depp was as usual, great and i wish i could meet a man as nice as him in my life! I'm going to go out and buy this film tomorrow so i can show it to my mum!

A Wonderful Up Lifting Movie

This movie is about the trials Gilbert Grape's life. From having a mentally handicapped brother to a heavily obese mother, Gilbert has it hard. He's struggling to find his place in this world but to also keep his family alive. This is perhaps Johnny Depp's best perfomance, and Leonardo Dicappreo portrayal as Arnie is absolutely stunning. It's a must see movie.

A movie with characters in their purest form.

In "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" we get to see different characters in their purest form. All of the characters are understandable and easy to relate to in all of their actions. It makes the emotions and drama elements in this movie feel all very real.For fans of Scandinavian cinema this movie is nothing new. Movies like this are getting made for years now over there. "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" however reaches a wider range of people and make more people see the beauty and brilliance of slow cinema, in which everything is build up very slow and the story is told like a documentary like observation of the different characters.Man and was Leonardo DiCaprio brilliant in this! Even the most hardened DiCaprio hater should have to admit this. He is totally believable as a mentally-challenged young boy. He really stole the show. Also the rest of the cast is more than great. Johnny Depp is as good as always and Mary Steenburgen and Darlene Cates also know to impress.Yet the movie is more than just an emotional drama, it also knows how to be funny and entertaining about certain things at the right times without making the movie less powerful in any way.There really is nothing wrong with the piece of cinema brilliance and everything is simply perfect and works very well.10/10

so perfect

I love Johnny. This movie is one of my favorites. I bought it to add to my sisters collection of Depp movies. A really touching movie with excellent acting

Draining, but amazing

When I saw this movie, I didn't realize that DiCaprio was the same kid from the Kirk Cameron show.... he was so convincing that I honestly thought, "Wow, they really got this retarded kid to perform well." So yes, I loved his performance. Johnny Depp - I liked him in this movie, but felt that his part was lacking something. Perhaps that is just the poignant lifelessness of his character. Watch this movie with a lot of chocolate; it is sadly frustrating.

Fine acting, just dreary

There's no doubting the quality of the acting in this film. Leonado in particular is outstanding and Depp plays his role well too.The subject matter presents such great possibilities and - thankfully - it certainly avoids all the potential Hollywood clichés that it would have been so easy to fall into. Unfortunately it avoids them so much that it just doesn't go anywhere much at all.The film felt like 4 hours not 2 - which I guess helps us empathise with the lead character! And if the directors aim was to get us to feel empathy with Gilbert Grape then he's done an outstanding job. I now know what it's like to feel trapped, bored, numb, like I'm just passing time. Sorry, for all those of you who love it (my wife did!) it just didn't do anything for me.

Stillwater pool of emotions

I had heard many people praising this film long before I ever actually caught it myself, and I have to say that the praise is more than worthy. On the surface it is a simple story of an unusual family closely bound together, but in actuality it is really about life itself. The title of the film "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" (for international readers, the term 'eating' is a play on words meaning 'bothering') can refer to many facets of his character.[POTENTIAL SPOILERS]Gilbert is bothered by the problems that his mother's large size impose on the family, and yet he isn't bothered enough to realize the curiosity others have in her; even helping kids get a better look at her through the window.Gilbert is bothered by having to take care of his rather impaired brother Arnie (masterfully played by DiCaprio), and yet he will not tolerate others to be disrespectful to him.Gilbert is bothered by the fact that he is effectively trapped by his family, and yet he really has nowhere to go (which seems to be a favorite chant of Arnie.)Gilbert is bothered by his father's suicide, which apparently triggered his mother's depression that led to her weight problem, and yet he seems constantly filled with the desire to just 'check out' himself but doesn't.Gilbert is bothered by a non-emotional sexual fling which ultimately has predictable results, and has difficulty dealing with a true relationship with Juliette Lewis.The care and concern that he feels for his family is powerful and tangible. An interesting metaphor used several times is him starting a fire (lighting a match), only to blow it out again, which kind of summarizes his existence; starting something, and then changing his mind (at least until the end of the film.)This film deals with the kind of gut-level emotions that we all have but would rather not acknowledge, very much like 'The Cider House Rules' (by the same director.) A truly wonderful film that should not be missed.

Wow, as dynamic as it is real! You will fall in love

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this film. Being a diehard sci-fi fan I don't usually go for drama. But in the end I would say its the best movie I'v ever seen. Once you see it you'll agree. Every character is so real. You can identify with all of them. The story is so dynamic, everybody changes. Leonardo Di Caprio (whom I hated in Titanic) is so convincing, you would swear they got a real autistic person to play Arnie. Johnny Depp made a great Gilbert, the role seemed made for him "shimmering [he] glow[s]". The story displays some of the problems that tear our families apart, and in contrast, in the end it shows all the values and loyalties that make up a caring family. Endora could be anywhere USA. This story is just so intense and dramatic, that you can't help but fall in love with it. I did.

A really good movie

I finally watched this movie recently and was glad I did it. I had been meaning to watch it for years but never seemed to be able to find the time. When I saw it came out on one of our high def movie channels I made sure to set the DVR to record it.

This movie is both fun and sad. Mostly it's sad though. Johnny Depp plays Gilbert Grape. He's a young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He has a mom who hasn't come out of the house in years since his father committed suicide in the basement. He has a brother with a disability who is unable to care for himself. And, to top it off, he has three other sisters to watch out for. Try juggling that while working at a grocery store, having an affair with an insurance salesman's wife, and falling in love with a young woman who is only in town for a short period of time.

They live in a small town in Iowa that is going no where. His only friends is the local mortician and a handyman with a dream of owning a Burger Barn.

Over the summer, everything changes for him. The aforementioned young lady has caught his eye, his brother's eighteenth birthday is nearing, a super mega grocery store has opened outside of town, and his own emotional needs are coming to a head.

It's a really good movie and I'm looking forward to reading the book now so I can see what all was left out. I highly recommend you watching this movie at the very least.

awesome

This movie is absolutley awesome. With the combination of Depp, Dicaprio and Lewis this movie is great. Its awesome but yet i am a fan of Depp so i really like this movie. Everyone should see it. Dicaprio is awesome too.

A beautiful movie that actually portrays real life

What's eating Gilbert Grape is one of the most realistic movies I have ever seen. It shows life in a small town in such a way that I actually would like to go there. The acting is brillant, none of the characters can be defined with only one adjective, they are all so complex that they come across as simple. That is the beauty of the movie itself, it seems very simple but is very complex. The casting is excellent...I truly feel that this is the best Leonardo Dicaprio movie I have ever seen , his Oscar nomination was well deserved. The performance he gave as Arnie, Gilbert's younger mentally handicapped brother, was outstanding, to say the least. Johnny Depp and Juliet Lewis also gave amazing performances that make this a memorable movie.

Very well-done

I thought I wouldn't like this. I decided to see it because I'm a fan of Johnny Depp who appeared in some of my favorite movies [ Edward Scissorhands, Benny and Joon, etc. ] I knew what the plot was: a guy who lives with his 15 year old sister, his 18 year old mentally disabled brother who could die at any time and his morbidly obese mother always has to do everything for his family and something happens that changes his life. It sounded like it was a typical sappy drama. I usually hate dramas like that. Movies in which the only point is to feel bad for the characters. But this one was quite different. The plot in this movie is unclear, which makes it appealing in my opinion. There isn't a lot of events in the movie, really. It all revolves around Arnie's birthday and Gilbert's meeting with the new girl. The movie is very slow paced and doesn't rely on action and shock to catch his viewer's attentions. It's moving, but the dialogues are also very simple. You might expect this movie to be over-dramatic but it's everything but that. The situation and story are extremely sad, but I never felt overwhelmed by this. Keep in mind that I can't usually handle dramas very well.The movie is about partly about Gilbert, but it also describes life in this town very well. Gilbert's family often has a big impact on the other people in this town, so it's natural that they would be the family that the movie is about. What's also really nice is that Gilbert isn't portrayed as a hero in this movie. He has flaws, and he can make mistakes even if he's taking care of everyone. He is not the typical good-hearted young adult or teenager who's taking care of everyone and wants to give everything for his family. He actually has feelings of his own and he is trying to find himself. The whole movie is about his quest to find who he really is, if he isn't Gilbert Grape, the guy who's always running after his brother Arnie.Another good point about this movie is the way it was filmed. The visuals are great and the way the movie was made makes us feel like we're seeing life in a different way than usual.

A useful metaphor for many dimensions of each of our lives.

Living a seemingly indespensible role is easy to fall in to. This movie illustrates how seductive and time-numbing these roles can be. It also shows the dos and don'ts of breaking them.

The only reason I initially agreed to watch this was because I was told it took place in Iowa, and I was born and raised in Iowa (and still continue to romanticize it 25 years after having graduated and moved away). The movie is a tremendous metaphor for many dimensions of each of our lives.

Dicaprio...who da thunk it?

Warning: potential spoilers ahead.Leonardo Dicaprio is masterful as the autistic 18 year-old Arnie Grape. I never would have thought, after seeing the crap he's doing now. Wow. His acting here, though not quite in the league of Daniel Day-Lewis' Cristy Brown in My Left Foot, rivals that of Geoffrey Rush in Shine and Dustin Hoffman in Rain man. I do not hesitate to say this. Rush and Hoffman are huge actors, and Dicaprio was just a boy at the time, but his performance is just as moving, just as comfortable, and just as mind-blowing, real and believable. Wow. He can act. It's a shame he's so terrible now. Maybe he just needs a suitable role. He's just no good at the squinting tough-guy stuff. He's no Clint Eastwood (which could be a compliment, I'm not sure).Anyway, the rest of the movie doesn't quite measure up to Dicaprio's tremendous acting, which doesn't make it necessarily bad. I don't want to seem shallow or closed, but I'm not into the cliché romance stuff. Yawn. I've heard it all before. Juliette Lewis is just boring, but her character is boring, being the perfect girl savior. She's not noticeably bad, though. Johnny Depp isn't bad either. He's not outstanding, but he's believable. Gilbert Grape is a complex character, that doesn't come around too often. He's conflicted, with himself, his mother, his autistic brother, his secret lover's husband, and the people that mistreat Arnie. He's a good kid. And he is human (unlike Juliette Lewis' character, faw!). He loses it. He runs away when things get hard. But he can come back. At one point, he hits Arnie, trying to get him to take a bath (like Dustin Hoffman in Rain man, Arnie is afraid of water). And he runs away, ashamed. But he comes back to Arnie's party, and they make amends.Gilbert's mother is overweight. Which is an understatement. He's embarrassed of her, and frequently refers to her as a beached whale. Really a rude analogy coming from her own son. She never moves from the couch. Never goes anywhere. But she loves her children, and when the police take Arnie away (after he climbs the tower for the last time), she gets up, and fights to get him back. Sniff, sniff. Touching. Anyway, she dies later during the party, and Arnie goes up to visit. This is a beautiful scene. A horrible scene. A beautiful scene. "Haha, you're hiding, momma," Arnie says. He thinks it's a game, but when it lasts for too long, he's scared. He's shaking her. He's crying. He's yelling for her to stop hiding. He's crying. What do you know...I'm crying too.Anyway, I don't want to bore myself (or you) by going on and on about the plot. Lalala. I didn't like the cliché romantic part of this film, but the rest is quite good. Good acting overall, not a bad story actually, though slightly predictable, the relationship between Gilbert and Arnie is thorough, moving and developed, and well, Leonardo Dicaprio is outstanding. And to think, stone-boy Tommy Lee Jones won best supporting actor over him. Faw, what balonee. Dicaprio delivers simply one of the best performances I have ever seen.

Depp Does It Delightfully

This has long been a favorite Johnny Depp film, with an engaging storyline, beautiful direction and wonderful performances. Di Caprio was nominated for an Oscar for his amazing performance as the mentally handicapped Arnie Grape, and it's just a pity he didn't win the Academy's vote. However good Di Caprio was, it has to be said that Johnny Depp's performance is also equally enthralling. Depp has the ability to convey so much emotion with his expressive, and astonshingly beautiful face, and it is the subtle, almost understated acting of Depp that requires repeated watching of this movie.

The rest of the cast are also excellent, and a special mention has to go to Darlene Cates for her portrayal of Momma, a woman so big that she's literally about to bring the house down! What's Eating Gilbert Grape is the kind of film that allows the viewer to experience it's richness slowly over a period of time, but don't waste too much more time if you have never seen this gem of a film. Check it out soon, if you enjoy it half as much as I do, you will fall in love with it!

Depressing but excellent film.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape starring Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio is a straight-to-the-point kind of film and I appreciate that. There's no sugar-coating or preaching, just a profound, honest film about a family who is anything but ordinary. DiCaprio is 100% flawless in this tearjerker. Great story and incredible acting, buy this cult classic today!

Leo was great!!!!!

I thought that this movie was the best. Leo made a wonderfull proformance as Arnie.It just shows you to respect mentally challenged kids and adults. It's Great!!!!!!I hope to read the book! END

Heartwarming story

This story is a much needed reality to life. Johnny Depp was excellent in this movie, bringing all emotions to heart. You could feel the trials Gilbert encountered as though they were your own. Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed the character of the mentally challenged beautifully, some of the best acting I have seen! DiCaprio definitely has some awesome talent, and this movie does not hide that fact. END

Gilbert Grape's Mother

To add to the reviews already written, I would like to focus on the character of Gilbert Grape's mother. However, unlike most of the other reviews here, my comments are critical of this film.

Johnny Depp plays the middle son in a dysfunctional small town North American Family. The elder son is at college, the younger son is mentally disabled (two sisters are also presnet, though merely as additional signs of a `problem family'), and we find out that the father hanged himself some years before. But Gilbert's greatest resentment is towards his mother. She is very fat, becoming so after her husband's death, and has not left the house since. She is so fat that she has (apparently) impaired the foundations of the house and the scene reflecting this is noteworthy, because it is only when Mom stands up and stamps her foot in anger that Depp's character realises that the house in unstable. Mom's anger becomes physically too much for the house.

The character of Mom functions as a spectacle in this film. Depp allows small boys to come and peep at her watching television. People stare at her when she ventures out of the house to collect her younger son from the sheriff's office. When Depp meets the Juliette Lewis character, he initially refuses to let her meet Mom. When they do finally meet, Mom is mortified and attempts to explain away her size to Lewis "I wasn't always like this". Lewis, who repeats pretty much the same phrase, standing with Depp looking down on Mom in her chair, is portrayed as gracious and kind, yet this scene evokes an uneasy realisation that this intercourse is not between three equal human beings. Mom is presented entirely as lacking. And though Depp's character does achieve some level of peace with Mom, the events that follow are shocking in what they represent (though, given Western culture`s obsessions around fatness and thinness, hardly surprising.)

Mom goes up to bed for the first time in years, and dies. After the authorities inform the family that Mom's corpse will have to be lifted from the house by Crane Gilbert, terrified of the humiliation this will bring, he says, to her, undertakes with his siblings to burn the house with Mom inside.

The end of the film shows Depp and his younger brother (the sisters despatched somewhere else) waiting for Lewis to come and take them away in her camper van. What is interesting here is that a male character, Gilbert's brother (Leo DiCaprio, Oscar-nominated for this role), young impetuous, mentally disabled and often a danger to himself, is allowed to survive and make demands on Depp's character, even while the film-maker kills off the mother.

What does Mom represent? I believe a number of anxieties: various excesses of U.S. culture; `dysfunctional' families and the demands they make on individuals; fear of women, terrifyingly erotic (Dicaprio's character is very attached physically to him mother) but also seen as `too much'; fear of difference. Her death is a not too subtle plot device to destroy the source of such anxieties. The presentation of Mom's predicament (apart from Gilbert) as something she might have overcome, maybe by losing some of her weight, ore merely by confronting her own traumas and overcoming them, just could not have been achieved in this film. Mom was never meant to be a person, a subject: she could only function as a spectacle, an object of the audience's gaze.

So, for some people in the audience at least, this movie is not warm, or profound. It is certainly not `feel- good,' and there is an ever present tone of contempt for those families who, through events beyond their control, find themselves in predicaments of ill health, bereavement, poverty, and social exclusion. There is also a gender hierarchy underlying the film's message. This is a very uncomfortable film to watch, and not because it is at all 'challenging': indeed it challenges nothing.

I will say this though. While watching this film, even while feeling anger at the engineered death of Mom's character, I found humour in that plot, and in the idea of the house's foundations being at risk: not because I found Mom's problems amusing in a futile attempt to distance myself from her (that is, an attempt to resolve any feelings of incongruity): but because I recognised the scenes merely reflected the predictable, transparent and rather absurd fixations of the film maker. I was laughing at the film-maker, not Mom.