Gilbert Grape is a small town young man with a lot of responsibility. His mother his overweight and his brother, Artie, has a mental issue.
Blaine: Author Peter Hedges’ background is theater. The idea for “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” came to Peter when he was teaching theater at a summer program at Northwestern University. One of his students asked him if he had written anything new and Peter told him that he was going to write a play. Peter and his students called it “Going Places with Gilbert Grape”. Peter liked the idea so much that he wanted to go deeper into it and get to know this character. He spent five years working on it and wrote it as a novel. Peter also re-named the title “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”. Peter thought about his creation being a movie after that.
Director Lasse Hallstrom was given a lot of film opportunities after his first feature, “My Life as a Dog” became a success. He wanted his next film to be American. A friend of Lasse’s sent him a letter saying that he read a book called “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and that he should turn it into a movie because he thought it was so amazing. Lasse read and loved the book. He met with Peter and told him he would like to direct the film. The script hadn’t been written yet and Peter was a first time screenwriter, but Lasse trusted him enough to write a great script. Paramount Pictures didn't want to finance the movie at first because they felt people wouldn’t like that the characters burn down the house towards the end, but Lasse and Peter were able to convince them to change the studio’s minds.
The actor Lasse had in mind for the lead character was Johnny Depp. Johnny agreed to do the movie before there was a script because he read and loved the novel. Peter Hedges thought that Johnny was too beautiful for the part at first, but he saw that Johnny has no vanity. Johnny isn’t that different from Gilbert Grape because he too had family problems growing up and Lasse didn’t know that until they started shooting. There’s a scene where Gilbert tells Becky, his love interest, “I want to be a good person” and that line wasn’t in the script, it came from Johnny. Peter had wished he thought of that line because it sounded great.
Lasse felt that Leonardo DiCaprio was too handsome to play Gilbert’s disabled brother, Arnie, but Leo did a great job with his audition and amazed Lasse. Lasse liked that Leo was able to enter the mind of a five year old whenever they would shoot a scene. People would see Leo act and they didn’t realize he was an actor, they actually thought he really was disabled. Leonardo went to visit this home for mental challenged kids and study how they behave.
Peter Hedges wanted Becky’s introduction to be more interesting in the film compared to the book. Gilbert passes her a few times and he doesn’t know who she is, but he wants to get to know her. It’s kind of like that love at first site type of thing. Becky is fifteen in the novel and there wasn’t a love story between her and Gilbert, but Peter felt she needed to be older for the film after Johnny Depp was cast because he had charming looks.
Peter had seen this woman, Darlene Cates, on the “The Sally Jesse Raphael show” and recorded it on tape so that he could use it as an example for Lasse of how big the mother needed to be. Lasse felt the woman on the tape could play the mother. He went to Texas to meet with Darlene and she read her parts of the script and Lasse liked her so much that he felt she was the perfect choice to play the mother.
Most of the scenes they shot would upset Darlene like when Gilbert is holding a boy up near the window and showing him what his mom looks like. Johnny would apologize to Darlene for that and made it clear to her that he wasn’t making fun of her. She also felt uncomfortable shooting the scene where her character reveals herself in front of the town for the first time. She was however happy to say the line “You’re my knight and shimmering armor” towards the end because she loved that line in the book and it was her favorite part of the job.
Peter Hedges said he had always wanted to climb a water tower when he was a kid because his brothers did it and so he wrote that Arnie would keep on wanting to go up a water tower. I like how in the end the family goes their separate ways after they set the house on fire and cremate the mother, except for Gilbert and Arnie. They stick together and begin a new life by going on the road with Becky and her grandmother.
My rating on “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” is five out of five stars.
Music by Bjorn Isfait and Alan Parker
Blaine: Lasse Hailstorm loved the theme that Bjorn came up with for the movie because it’s so beautiful to listen to.
