WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE? Starring Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio and Juliette Lewis. Directed by Lasse Hallstrom. Category II. At the Silvercord.
IT IS not easy to put down on paper what makes this film quite so magical and refreshing. Perhaps scriptwriter Peter Hedges' original novel did exactly that (only those who have read it will know), but thanks mainly to the marvellous Swedish director of My Life As A Dog, the appropriately named Lasse Hallstrom, Hedges' well-received book has now become a warm, wonderful film.
What's eating Gilbert Grape is boredom, frustration, the weight of adult responsibility on young shoulders, the considerable weight of his mother, who is vast and a source of acute embarrassment to him - all the usual stuff, really. Johnny Depp, of course, is no adolescent and as he edges into his 30s he should be a tad old for this kind of hip-vulnerable, James Dean-ish role.
But you'd never know it. Depp knows his range and his strengths, and is adept at picking just those quiet, quirky parts - from Cry Baby to Edward Scissorhands and Benny And Joon - that show them off well. He may never play Hamlet but Depp could have been born to play Gilbert Grape.
Home for Gilbert is the ricketty clapboard house his dad built outside the nowhere town of Endora, Iowa, where the most excitement folk have all year is in high summer when the camper vans stop by on the way to somewhere else; that and every time Gilbert's retarded brother Arnie risks his neck climbing up the water tower.
The job of playing a mentally afflicted character has found many a decent actor wanting, but young Leonardo DiCaprio's performance has rightly been praised as remarkable. DiCaprio fully deserved the supporting actor's Oscar he lost - to Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, for heaven's sake - for his portrayal of real beauty, fragility and impish charm. Coping with his beloved brother's unpredictable nature is one of Gilbert's major beefs and DiCaprio is able to leave us in no doubt why.