What's Eating Gilbert Grape (8/10): A classic family drama with touching performances.

“I want Momma to take aerobics classes. I want Ellen to grow up. I want a new brain for Arnie. I want…”

Looking back at Leonardo DiCaprio’s filmography I’m constantly reminded what a great actor he is. In What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, he plays a seventeen year old mentally ill kid in such a natural way that if I didn’t know this was Leo I would’ve believed the actor playing Arnie was really mentally ill. This is probably one of his standout performances and is one of the highlights of this emotionally gripping family drama. However he is just a supporting character in this film as the title character is played by Johnny Depp, Arnie’s older brother who is always taking care of him and the rest of the family. Gilbert’s father has abandoned them and ever since he has been the male role model for the family in the small community where they live. He not only takes care of Arnie, he also has to provide for the family by working in a small local supermarket. He is ashamed of his obese mother (Darlene Cates), who simply stopped caring about her beautiful body after her husband abandoned her. Gilbert also has two sisters who help out with the family chores, Amy (Laura Harrington) and Ellen (Mary Kate Schellhardt). The responsibility Gilbert feels towards his family has taken its toll on him and explains why he seems to be half asleep all the time. He has no time for accomplishing any personal goals or dreams and spends his few free minutes with his local friends, Tucker (John C. Reilly) and Bobby (Crispin Glover). Things take an unexpected turn when Becky (Juliette Lewis) arrives in town and the two form a special bond together. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is an emotionally gripping family drama that works thanks to the strong performances from the cast and a fantastically well written script by Peter Hedges. The film avoids feeling cliche or melodramatic and I found it to be an honest story. Lasse Hallstrom has been accused of being overly melodramatic at times, but I think that the director avoided much of those moments here thanks in most part to a well written script.

Leonardo DiCaprio gives the best performance of the film, but Johnny Depp also delivers in a very subtle way. His character doesn’t seem to say much, but the way he simply moves and speaks says a lot about him. He knows he isn’t getting anywhere in life and feels stuck in this small town, but at the same time he has responsibilities and knows that his family relies on him to survive. He is trapped in a prison he can’t get out of. He cares deeply for his family, but at the same time he resents them and it seems they have become a burden for him. The way he approaches the character is fascinating because he doesn’t have to say or do anything for us to understand how he feels. We can easily identify and sympathize for his character. The chemistry he shares with Lewis is also strong. She is in some ways the opposite of him. She is free spirited and has travelled across several states. She doesn’t have many responsibilities, and the two end up complementing each other quite well. Their relationship might not be the central theme of the movie, but it does lighten up the mood a bit. Reilly is always funny on screen and despite playing a more serious character he still delivers his usual quirky silliness to the role. All these small relationships are the central theme of the movie and the brotherhood between Depp and DiCaprio stands out above them all. I enjoyed this family drama and I’m glad I finally got a chance to watch it.  

My Review: Alice in Wonderland (2010) (7/10)

¨You used to be much more…muchier. You`ve lost your muchness.¨

(7/10) Those are the words the Mad Hatter tells Alice after she has returned to Wonderland, but now much older as a 19 year old girl who has no memory of her last visit there when she was a little kid. Tim Burton directs this classic Disney tale and he teams up once again with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. They have already worked together in Sweeney Todd, Tim Burton`s Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Depp and Burton have a profound respect for each other and it is always a pleasure to experience one of their creative films. When I heard they were going to work together in this film I was really excited because I knew that Burton could do something memorable with Wonderland. He is one of the most imaginative and creative directors and Wonderland was way ahead of its time when it came out in 1951. I wasn`t a big fan of the cartoon because it was missing a story, but the characters and the world that was created was very imaginative nonetheless. Burton had a lot of interesting material to work with here and he did a great job although perhaps I was expecting a bit too much. This is far better than the cartoon because there is a better plot and a decent story this time, but the characters didn`t seem as mad as they were in the original. I was surprised that this time around they all made sense, but I guess you need that in order to have a good story. The visuals and the effects were also amazing so Burton was successful in recreating this world.

The story takes place many years after Alice has visited Wonderland and she has no memory of her visit there. She is now a nineteen year old girl who is getting ready for a banquet which is thrown in her honor although she doesn`t know it yet. Alice (played by Mia Wasikowska who could recently been seen in Amelia) is not happy about having to dress up for the event and she is still dreaming about a different world where she doesn`t have to do what she is expected. She still has some of the same attitudes that she had in the original film. Alice soon finds out from her cousins that the banquet is thrown in her honor because Hamish (Leo Bill) is going to propose to her and that she is expected to say yes because he is a Duke. Alice doesn`t have feelings for Hamish and she can`t say yes and is suddenly distracted by a rabbit that is running across the yard and decides to follow it. She ends up falling through a rabbit hole and ends upside down in a locked room very similar to the one in the original film. She finds a key in the table but it only opens a very small door so she can`t get through it. This is perhaps one of the most similar scenes to the original except that there is no talking doorknob this time, and Alice still has no memory of this place even though she goes through the exact same situation of shrinking and then getting larger. Once in Wonderland, or should I say Underland because the other was the name that Alice had given it when she was a child, she runs into the same creatures she had been with in the past such as Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Matt Lucas), the white rabbit (Micheal Sheen from Frost/Nixon), the blue caterpillar (Alan Rickman from the Harry Potter series), the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), and the Red Queen (Helen Bonham Carter) among others. There are also some new characters like the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), Stayne the knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover from Charlie`s Angels), Bandersnatch, and the Jabberwocky.

What I enjoyed more about this film than the original one is that there was an actual plot to this story. Alice had a mission this time around and she was not just running after the white rabbit. There is much more action and Burton does a great job at recreating this world. Johnny Depp is great as usual and his character was probably one of the best in the movie and the reason why many people wanted to see Alice in the first place. Mia Wasikowska also does a good job as she has the lead role in the film. Burton still recreates certain elements from the original such as the entrance to Wonderland, the scene where the Red Queen is playing wicket using a flamingo for a stick, and the famous riddle that the Mad Hatter asks, ¨why is a raven like a writing desk? ¨ to which we still don`t get an answer too because there isn`t one really. The movie works and the visuals are great, but you are still left with a sense that there could be so much more done with this movie. Wonderland is a magical place, but to rephrase the words the Mad Hatter tells Alice it seems that this movie was missing something more…muchier. We could have used some more of Burton`s famous muchness.