It's been 10 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.
6. What's Eating Gilbert Grape
6. What's Eating Gilbert Grape
The movie that convinced me Leonardo DiCaprio could act.Johnny Depp is a teenage boy who loves his 400 pound mother, his mentally retarded brother (DiCaprio), and his restless sister but the weight of their combined needs results in crushing responsibility. Stuck in the backwater of tiny Endora, he sees no way out of his situation. The answer to his problems is not what one would anticipate and is as understated as Depp's performance in many ways. Along the way, we are shown each person in greater depth and as we do the quirkiness becomes less important than the different aspects of humanity. Life affirming and it will stick with you.
Strange you should post this one. I was just thinking about ordering it from Netflix for my daughters, as they need some depth to their movie list. Left to their own devices, they watch the same light romance and horror crap over and over. If you asked them, there were no good films made before 2000.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestion. This is a really good movie, a type of movie I don't see often. This one happens to be available online (at least on Hulu); I don't think the others are.
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