What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a fairly standard (but admittedly very good) mid-90’s Oscar-bait drama, with a handful of things that make it especially notable. First off, it stars a young Johnny Depp, before Tim Burton made him into an underground star, and way before the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise made him into one of the most recognizable names in Hollywood. Second, it stars an even younger Leonardo DiCaprio, four years before Titanic would turn him into one of the most overplayed teen heartthrobs since James Dean. Finally, and most notably, it costars Darlene Cates, who wasn’t even an actress—the film’s producers simply saw her on an episode of Sally Jessy Raphael entitled “Too Heavy to Leave the House.” The film would still be a very good one without all of this, but those three facts alone make it worth seeing.

Depp plays the title character, the oldest child and de facto “man of the house” for a family living in rural Iowa, and DiCaprio plays his brother Arnie, a mentally challenged 18-year-old whom Gilbert must constantly watch. The morbidly obese Cates is their “Mama” (the character is given no other name), who was evidently widowed seventeen years ago when her husband hung himself in the basement—and hasn’t left the house in seven years, resigned simply to watch TV and gain weight. Gilbert is constantly tied up keeping Arnie out of trouble, embarrassed by his Mama, and forced to work at a mom-and-pop grocery store to support the family. To make matters worse, he’s stuck in an affair with a lonely housewife whose husband is incessantly trying to sell him life insurance. But when he meets Becky (Juliette Lewis), a young woman who travels around with her Grandmother in a trailer, he begins to reexamine his life.

Like most great dramas, Grape is a film that doesn’t lend itself well to summary, but it works excellently as a film due mainly to the strength of its actors. Depp (who had just recently completed his first Burton collaboration, Edward Scisssorhands) is great as always as a stuck-where-he-is everyman, and DiCaprio proves what was so easy to forget in 1997: the kid can act. By all reports, he prepared for the role by observing actual children with mental handicaps, and it shows: his performance as Arnie is perhaps a bit on the stereotypical side, but never comes off as mocking or one-note. He’s a genuinely sympathetic character who loves his brother, but struggles with a learning disability.
Cates, of course, steals the show here. Critics could say she’s merely playing herself (and she might be, but there’s really no way to know for sure), but Mama is a character with serious nuance—a woman who’s suffered a lot in her lifetime, and perhaps has become somewhat repulsive, but is full of love for her children and ultimately yearns for their respect, and their happiness. It’s a performance that would be noteworthy coming from anyone, but knowing she had never acted professionally before makes her all the more impressive.

Ultimately, Grape is a film about learning to deal with the past, coming to terms with who you are, moving on, and looking for better things in life. In that respect the ending sequence is brilliantly effective, as the symbolism becomes fully realized and the characters are reminded of what matters and drawn closer together. I’ll avoid the overused phrase “SPOILER ALERT” here, but suffice it to say that What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a film you won’t soon forget.