What´s Eating Gilbert Grape? Friday, October 24, 2008

This movie has a good story and I like it.

The movie show people how hard it is to raise a mentally retarded brother and having the responsibility for his whole family. There are five members in the family wich is the mother, her children Amy, Gilbert, Arnie and Ellen. Their mother is very big and can't walk. If she strain herself she can have an heartattack and the hildren does everything for her because of that. The people in the village are talking about her and they want to take a look at her. She haven't left the house since her husbands funeral. Her husband hung himself in the basement and she has been inside of the house for 17 years. After her husbands funeral she gain weight and just sat in her couch all the time.

The oldest sister is Amy, she is working home, bake cakes and she is like a mother. Then comes Gilbert, he is works in a food shop and is always takeing Arnie with him to his work. Arnie is his brother who is mentally retarded. Gilbert loves him very much and bathe him when he needs. Arnie loves to play but he can be very strenuous sometimes and it is difficult for the people around him to know how to behave. The youngest one is Ellen, she is 15 years old and works in an icecream bar.

Now I will tell about a scene that I remember from this movie. The scene that I have choosen is when Gilbert left Arnie in the bathtub. I felt sorry for Arnie to be lefted alone like that, he is a helpless boy and he can't bath or dry himself. I got tears in my eyes. I could imagine myself in that bathtub lefted alone freezing and helpless.
Gilbert left Arnie alone because he wanted to meet a woman whos name is Becky.

In the begining of the movie Gilbert just cared about his family but when he met Becky everything changed. He fell in love with her and she fell in love with him. I don't think that it was wrong but it was not right either, everything has to parts. He changed very much, he started to think about himself and it's good but at the same time it isn't. There is just one family but there are many girls to find. He intends more about his life and he can't just think about his family at all the time, he has his own life too. So I don't think that it was totaly wrong.

Gilbert has the whole responsibility for the family because he is the man in the house. We can see that very clearly. He takes care of Arnie, that isn't easy. It is very difficult to take care of an mentally retarded boy because one have to behave and have patience for him. I don't have the experience but I can imagine how hard it could be. I think that the responsibility is not shared good enough because it is just Gilbert that takes care of Arnie.
I think that it would be better if everybody plays with Arnie or cares about him.

Gilbert says about Arnie that: Some days you want him to live and some days you don't. Yes, I understand him and his feelings. The doctors said that Arnie could just live to his tenth birthday but he is now 17 years old and going for 18 years. I think that it is very hard to look at him and know that he will never heal and be a normal boy, the fact that you don't know how long he will stay in this world, or to look at him and see him laugh and think, he isn't a normal boy but he is happy and if you look at other people they don't laugh and they are normal. Every time when Arnie laugh in the movie I think how could a mentally retarded boy laugh so much, how happy a person can be with this problem and a normaly people aren't happy and they don't have this problem.


I don't remember when Arnie says I can go anytime so I don't know what he mean with that.

This movie shows how a mentally retarded boy can laugh and be happy. How a family can help each other to go through that their dad hang himself, the mother is to big and Arnie as he needs very much attention. The last thing is, you have only one family and take care of them.

Arnie and Gilbert followed Becky and her mother in their caravan. I think that Gilbert and Becky got kids together. Beckys mother died and Arnie got older than 20 years and he got a girlfriend. Then everybody livs happy ever after.