Word: grapes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What's Eating Gilbert Grape...
...What's Eating Gilbert Grape" is reminiscent of "Gas, Food, Lodging" and "My Own Private Idaho" in its genre--realistic yet romantic, white trash splashed with a tinge of wistful mysticism. (It even opens like "Idaho," with two young men standing at the side of a long, deserted country road.) Movies of this kind take place in a grittier America, where people don't have cellular phones or facelifts--instead they are uneducated, and not very well dressed...
...knew what that was. His life revolves around his family. The death of his father has left Gilbert in charge, and as his once-beautiful mother's way of mourning is to wallow in grotesque obesity, his older sister Amy (Laura Harrington) has taken over the maternal role. The Grape family is frozen in time. Momma's immobility reduces her to a permanent state of infancy, and mentally handicapped brother Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio) needs constant supervision...
This town, Gilbert feels, is what keeps him from doing better. Home for the Grapes is Endora, obviously christened by screenwriter Peter Hedges after the verb "to endure." Run-down and depressed, Endora suffers from and delights in the great wheel of American capitalism. What keeps Gilbert planted in this morbid spot is Momma (Darlene Cates). Most of the time Momma sits planted on a sofa in front of the TV, where she sleeps at night, and where the girls dutifully pull up a table at meal times. Meanwhile, the house, which Mr. Grape built and died in, has rotted...
...bizarre family? Gilbert Grape's is odder...