What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993)

This is one of my favorite films for reasons I can't really explain.
Endora is a small mid-western town where nothing much happens. It is where Gilbert (the always wonderful Johnny Depp) lives with his family, his grossly overweight housebound mother (the amateur Darlene Cates), his mentally disabled younger brother Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio, who should have won an Oscar for this film) and his two sisters, Amy (Laura Harrington) and Ellen (Mary Kate Schellhardt). He works at the local grocery store, which still does home deliveries and is losing business to the major chain grocery store in the next larger town. His only joy is his ill-fated and half-hearted affair with lonely housewife Betty Carver (Mary Steenburgen), whose insurance selling husband, Ken (Kevin Tighe) may or may not be abusive. The highlight of his year is watching the campers roll through with Arnie and this year, just before Arnie's miraculous eighteenth birthday, one camper breaks down.
Finally something happens. Gilbert meets the camper girl, the well-traveled and tolerant Becky (Juliette Lewis) who doesn't mind Arnie's antics and admires Gilbert for maintaining him as best he can. Gilbert slowly falls in love with her, though he knows her stay is only temporary. While Gilbert breaks things off with Betty, nearly causing her to burn her house down, his best friend, Tucker (John C. Reilly) is ecstatic over the arrival of a new fast food chain, Burger Barn, though he gets enough work at as a handy man just trying to keep Gilbert's family home afloat.
Life gets complicated when Betty's husband dies under slightly murky circumstances and Arnie climbs the water tower for the last time, causing him to be taken to jail, which prompts Bonnie (Gilbert's mother) to leave the house for the first time in seven years, missing several important events, including the graduations of several of her children. It is a sight to behold and a sight that the townsfolk won't likely forget anytime soon, laughing at Bonnie the whole time, but she accomplishes her mission, getting Arnie out of jail without consequences.
The film ends on Arnie's eighteenth birthday, Bonnie thrilled that her son made it this far. She meets Becky and that goes well. Bonnie climbs the steps and later dies. Even in death, she can't escape people laughing at her, as a crane will be needed to get her out so Gilbert burns the house down.
Life moves on, and next year when the campers roll around, Gilbert and Arnie enjoy Becky and her grandmother going literally whatever the road will take them.
The film is great, filled with solid performances especially from DiCaprio and I love the rustic setting with a mismatched and falling apart house, just like in real life. The characters are realistically quirky and the roles were basically written for Depp and Lewis. There are a few consistency problems, like how can the father have committed suicide seventeen years ago when youngest child Ellen is only fifteen and then, something so minor only a trained eye can pick up on it. During one of the diner scenes with Gilbert and his friends, the amount of cereal in Bobby's (Crispin Glover's) bowl keeps changing.
Yet, despite Gilbert's creepiness of spying on Becky's camper, this is a great film, showing how characters need to be understood. I've seen this film four times and will see it four more times. Grade: A-