Movie Review: What's Eating Gilbert Grape

This movie is 15 years old and Johnny Depp looks like a kid though he was in his mid 20s at the time. I picked out What's Eating Gilbert Grape because I went through Netflix one day clicking on Johnny Depp movies left and right. I have seen his recent movies, but not the older ones and I wanted to take a look see.

From the Netflix envelope:

Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) lives in a backwater Iowa town and is "man of the house" to his retarded brother, Arnie (Leonardo Dicaprio), a couple of sisters and his dangerously overweight mother. Despite all of the crushing responsibility, Gilbert perserveres. But will he ever be able to live his own life? Rated PG-13.

This family reminds me of one of those families, where it seem slike everything that can goes wrong does go wrong. I like the way the story shows how people can persevere inspite of incredible odds. To me, it was a depressing film and I wouldn't have been able to hang in there the way Gilbert did for as long as he did.

Johnny Depp's performance was very believable. Leonardo DiCaprio's performance should have won an award. He did an excellent job and couldn't have been very old at the time.

I gave this movie 3 stars. I liked it, but didn't love it.