What's Eating Gilbert Grape Reviews

This is the movie that Leonardo DiCaprio received an Oscar nomination for, five years before Titanic . And, in fact, this is the movie that should have made him a star, he's so good in it. Based on the novel by Peter Hedges (who adapted his own book) and directed by Lasse Hallström ( My Life as a Dog ), this is the funny, moody tale of a young man named Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) who lives at home in a small town with his 500-pound Momma (beautifully played by nonpro Darlene Cates), his mentally retarded younger brother Arnie (DiCaprio, utterly convincing), and his sisters. Not a lot happens--Arnie keeps climbing a water tower and getting stuck; Gilbert is involved with a married woman (Mary Steenburgen), then meets a nice new girl in town who's closer to his age (Juliette Lewis). And that's exactly what makes this movie so much more than your run-of-the-mill Hollywood product: it's not about some mechanical, formulaic plot; it's about these characters, and it allows you to spend some time with them and get to know them. Depp may have started out as a TV teen idol on 21 Jump Street , but his feature film choices since then--in such wonderfully offbeat and diverse movies as Cry-Baby , Edward Scissorhands , Benny & Joon , Donnie Brasco --have made him one of the most interesting, unpredictable, and risk-taking young actors in American movies. --Jim Emerson