What's eating Gilbert Grape - 1993

Well, it's a good movie, I'm glad I saw it once but I won't watch it again, I think. It's very sad, in a deep although peaceful way. Gilbert (Johnny Depp) is the eldest son of the Grape family. Since his father killed himself his mother changed, until one day she stopped going out of her house completely. For years now she's spent her days on the couch eating and she's now so big that boys come round her windows to watch her and laugh (children are cruel). Gilbert is responsible for the family: his sisters Amy and teenage Ellen, and most of all Arnie (Leonardo di Caprio) who is mentally retarded and needs to be looked after because he can't take care of himself.
You can feel how this situation is hard for the Grape kids, all of them, and Arnie's continuous shouting is really trying on everybody's nerves, including the audience.
Gilbert works in a shop to support the family, and they're all planning a party for Arnie's 18 birthday. Their mother does nothing to help as usual, they must think of everything by themselves. Amy cooks for the family and makes a cake for the party, but Arnie keeps running inside the house and causes the cake to fall down on the floor, and poor Amy was there, on the floor, saying what now? I have no time to make another one! So they order one and Gilbert pays twenty dollars for it but Arnie eats it and Gilbert loses it. These poor kids had such a weight on their shoulders and nothing to look for in the future. One's home should be one's safe place, but for them life at home was even harder than life outside. Gilbert likes a new girl in town (Juliette Lewis) , but even spending an afternoon with her causes trouble because he was supposed to help Arnie with the bath instead he left him alone. They never have a moment of peace. After Gilbert hits Arnie he feels so guilty and suffers very much.
The brothers and sisters make peace and towards the end the mother walks upstairs for the first time in years and there they find her dead on her bed. Special measures would be needed to get her body out of the house, but the kids loved their mom and can't bear the idea of all those people coming to watch her and Gilbert decides to burn down the house. They take everything out and then they watch it burn. Next scene is about a year later: no information are given of how they made it this past year without a home. It should be a hopeful ending because now Gilbert and the others can leave and go away wherever they want, but it's too simplistic, too 'thrown out there', nothing more than a 'mom's dead, you're free now'.
That was not a satisfying ending for me.



In Italy: Buon compleanno Mr Grape