The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 138 Days to go: 95
Movie #300: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
Small towns and families, amirite? They know you, they support you, they oppress you, they suffocate you — all in equal measure, it seems. You can resent them in the same moment that you defend them. You can hate them as much as you love them. That’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
Gilbert (Johnny Depp) is the man of the family. His father is dead, his older brother is gone, and though he’s in his early to mid twenties, he has to support the household. There’s a lot on his shoulders. He’s got two younger sisters, a younger brother, and his mother to take care of, but just the care and keeping of his brother Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a lot to shoulder. There aren’t specifics given, but Arnie has some sort of mental disability. He’s about to turn eighteen, but he has the mind of a child. He doesn’t understand danger, he has no impulse control, he can only barely follow directions, and a lot of times he doesn’t know right from wrong. He can’t take care of himself at all. Since Gilbert’s the only other male in the house, a lot of the personal care of Arnie, like bathing, falls to him. It’s not hard to see how that could back up on you and make you crazy, make you hate your life, make you wish more than anything for some sort of release. Even with all the love in your heart, no one has infinite patience.
Gilbert’s mother (Darlene Cates) is another story. She’s morbidly obese and confined to the house. Confined to the downstairs, even. She can’t climb the stairs, she barely ever walks anywhere. Gilbert resents her too, because it’s easy to blame a fat person for becoming fat. It’s easy to mock her and disdain her or gawk at her, but at the same time, he loves her. Of course he does; she’s his mother. When she has him take her into town to get Arnie from the police station following his latest escape, she’s like a freak show. Everyone in town gathers around, like she’s her own circus, and that, Gilbert finds, he can’t stand at all. For while it’s okay for you to hate your parents, it’s almost never okay for anyone else to criticize them. It hurts your heart, because you know their heart is hurting and humiliated. And the last thing you want is for your loved ones to be laughing stocks. When Gilbert’s mom passes away, it’s only right that they burn her, and the house her husband built, to ashes. Gilbert won’t let her be humiliated again.
The other women in Gilbert’s life are varying degrees of vexing. His one sister is too overwhelmed, having been basically thrown into the role of stay-at-home-mom to her disabled mother, disabled brother, and bratty younger sister. And the youngest sister is bratty because she’s fifteen, and that’s how fifteen-year-olds are. She resents the shame and obligation of Arnie possibly more than Gilbert does. She wants to be pretty and popular and she wants to not be an outcast, which you kind of can’t blame her for, and yet Gilbert kind of does because he’s under these same burdens himself and he doesn’t have the luxury of being a bratty fifteen-year-old.
Meanwhile, the married woman he’s been having an affair with — Betty Carver, played by Mary Steenburgen — feels him pulling away from her. Maybe she’s not as exciting as she used to be. Maybe he fears her husband finding out. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be at anyone else’s beck and call. Whatever it is, she reacts to his withdrawal with ever more neediness and resentment at his sudden interest in a stranger — Becky, played by Juliette Lewis — who was driving through town with her grandmother when their truck broke down. It’s not until Betty finds her own unexpected release (which is both welcomed and not), that she’s able to give Gilbert his. And even though he’s been ready for it, he’s sad about it too. Those seemingly conflicting yet coexisting emotions are what the film’s all about.
Take Gilbert’s town, for example. It’s too small, too insular for words. There is nothing to do, nowhere to go. The most exciting things to happen are the recent acquisition of a Food Land supermarket and the impending arrival of a Burger Barn fast food chain, even though these are the exact same things that will no doubt be accused to stealing the town’s character and destroying its small businesses down the line. The small grocery Gilbert works at is already feeling the effects, but they can’t compete — not with Food Land’s lower prices or its selection or its ability to provide a big, fresh-made birthday cake with only hours notice. Simultaneously, they are bringing the town together and pulling it apart. Conflicting, yet coexisting.
Becky, of course, knows this and accepts it. She tamps down Gilbert’s wanderlust a bit, even as he’s drawn to her exotic “different-ness” of being from somewhere else, of having been other places. And in a funny way, the things that are supposed to make her so appealing — this almost perfect ideal of acceptance and zen she represents — are the things I find most annoying about the film. Yes, she gives Gilbert perspective. And yes, her optimism is definitely needed to offset Gilbert’s jaded views of everything. But I find her completely without dimension, with her rejection of beauty standards and her complete loving, patient acceptance of Arnie and of Mrs. Grape and of Gilbert’s relationship with Mrs. Carver. It’s all a little much. Where is the conflict coexisting inside her? (Plus, I hate her hair. It’s much better when she comes back a year later and its’ grown out a bit.)
Outside of Becky’s existence, though, I find the other characters really rich and interesting. And the performances by the actors, as well. A lot of attention is rightfully paid to DiCaprio, because it’s so immersive. Even in an “Oscar-bait” type role, he knocks it completely out of the park and loses all identity that is not this boy. It’s really quite striking, and I’m not ashamed to say I wish he would’ve won that year over Tommy Lee Jones and his “I don’t care” from The Fugitive. I like it, but come on.
The real accomplishment, however, is by Johnny Depp. Gilbert is the whole movie; he’s in almost every scene. He’s the emotional heart and its upheaval. He conveys all the heartache, the frustration, the pain, the love, the confusion that Gilbert’s plagued with and he does it without any of the showiness that’s become a bit of a hallmark for Depp of late. It’s a graceful, nuanced performance, and I like it a lot.
The town I grew up in was not small in the way Gilbert’s is small, but it still felt oppressive and suffocating. I still battled and clawed to get out of it. And now that I’m out I’ve missed the familiarity and comfort of it on more than one occasion. Life’s so funny and weird that way.
Viable Option 