Analysis of the movie “What's Eating Gilbert Grape”

Overview of the movie

What's Eating Gilbert Grape is an America drama movie shot in the year 1993. This film follows the story of Gilbert, who is 24 years old. Gilbert Grape has a lot of responsibilities throughout the movie. Among the many responsibilities that Gilbert Grape has, the major one is taking care of his mother who is so overweight that she cannot leave the house. Another major responsibility for Grape is his younger brother, Arnie, who has a tendency of looking for trouble. Having settled in a job at a grocery store as well as the continuing affair with a local lady, Betty Carver, Grape finally gets his life shaken up by Becky, who is a free-spirited woman. The setting of this movie is in the town of Endora, Iowa. It is in this town where Grape is very busy taking care of his brother who has a developmental disorder. Here they wait for the many tourists who usually go through the town in the course of the annual the Airstreamer’s Club assembly close to a nearby recreational area. In the movie, it is clearly shown that Grape’s mother gave up with her life after her husband committed suicide in a basement about 14 years earlier. Her mother, Bonnie, spends her days just on the couch watching television and eating. This has earned her morbid obesity. Therefore, the overall relationship of Grape to his family members is that of both care and protection. At his workplace, there is a brand new Flood Land Supermarket that has been launched and is threatening the existence of the small Lamson's Grocery. Grape’s life is complicated further by the fact that he is in a relationship with a woman who is married. Generally, the scenes in What's Eating Gilbert Grape are full of grief because of what Gilbert Grape experiences. 

Losses

There are various scenes in this movie that depict loss. The two scenes from the film that depict sudden losses are where the deaths of Mrs. Carver’s and Bonnie’s husbands are shown. For Mrs. Carver, she experiences sudden loss in the movie when her husband drowns in the wading pool of her family after suffering a heart-attack. The second scene, where loss is depicted is the death of Bonnie’s husband after he committed suicide by killing herself. In both scenes, the deaths are sudden and a blow to the bereaved.

There is also the scene where Mama Bonnie dies towards the end of the film. The death of Mama Bonnie is a loss that was prolonged since she developed obesity in a gradual manner because of her sedentary lifestyle. The fact that she only sat on the couch all days long eating and watching television caused her to get morbid obesity, which led to her death. It is a scene that causes much grief to her family members. 

Stages of loss

For the characters, who experience loss in this movie through death of their loved ones, a number of stages of their grief can be identified. There are five stages of loss identifiable in most of these characters, such as Mama Bonnie’s family after her death and Mama Bonnie after her husband committed suicide. 

Denial 

The first stage is denial. Denial is a stage of loss where the bereaved feels a conscious or unconscious rejection of the existing reality in relation to the circumstance of grief suffered. This is normally a mechanism of defense and comes to every person who experiences loss in a perfectly natural manner. There are those who really become locked in this stage in the course of dealing with a traumatic change, which can be ignored. For instance, in this case, death is something that cannot be avoided. Mama Bonnie moves in a stage of denial when her husband commits suicide by hanging himself in the basement. She overreacted and never left the sitting room, choosing to stay on the couch for a very long period of time. She could not accept the reality that this incident had indeed happened hence she needed to move on with her life. When she dies, her sons and daughters are also in the stage of denial initially. They could not believe that she had gone and left them forever. The same stage of denial also grips Mrs. Carver after the death of her husband, who died of heart-attack. 

Anger

Anger is the second stage of loss that is identifiable in the characters who go through grief in this movie. The characters of the movie manifest their anger in different ways. It is important to know that individuals experiencing a loss become angry even with themselves and those who are around them as they seek to find out why the loss had to occur. Mama Bonnie is one character in the movie who was very emotionally upset and angry at the loss of his husband through. She could not figure out why the incident had to occur. She really felt angry with herself thinking that the loss happened because of her fault. She even gave up with her life and could not ever go to her bedroom upstairs. Her daughters and sons are also upset and get angry when she dies towards the end of the movie.

Bargaining

The next stage of loss identifiable among the characters in this film is bargaining. After a loss such as death of a loved one, people may start bargaining with God. However, this bargaining does not provide any solution. Mama Bonnie entered this stage of loss after her husband died. She could ask if she could make up her life again and if things could just be reversed. 

Depression

This stage is known as preparatory grieving. It is a stage where one is strongly affected by the loss experienced. It is a natural feeling of sadness and regret. A person’s life becomes full of uncertainty as a result of the loss experienced. The kind of depression, which Mama Bonnie goes through in the movie after the death of her husband, is very intense. It causes a lot of despair to her and she even gives up with life. She became unable to take care of her family leaving this responsibility to Gilbert Grape. Towards the end of the film, Grape and his siblings are also extremely affected by her death. They experience strong feelings of sadness. 

Acceptance  

The final stage of loss is acceptance. This stage shows that there is a degree of emotional detachment and objectivity after the loss. In this stage, an individual starts experiencing relief after a long period of grieving. After a very long time of grieving, Mama Bonnie entered the stage of acceptance over her husband’s death. She accepted the loss of her husband and counted it as a reality. The evidence of Bonnie’s acceptance is the scene where she climbs the stairs to her bedroom for the time, since the suicide of her husband, during the 18th birthday party of Arnie. However, it is at this point that she dies. It is vital to note that people who are dying always accept their death long before those they leave behind. It is her children who are left in grief for a very long time before they also enter the stage of acceptance. While in the stage of acceptance, the children of Bonnie feel relieved by her death since she was a figure of ridicule in the society and they had to use much energy in taking care for her. 

Behaviors

The characters display different behaviors as a way of dealing with the losses that they experience through the death of their loved ones. After her husband hanged himself in the basement, Bonnie chose sitting on the couch throughout the day and night as her way of dealing with the loss. She found the habit of watching television an effective way of relieving her mind from the depression of the loss. Moreover, Bonnie totally avoided going upstairs to her bedroom after the loss of her husband. This decision must have been her way of avoiding room that would always remind her of her late husband and make her stay in depression for a long time. For the children, they decided to evacuate the house of all their belongings and set it on fire to avoid letting the public to view their mother’s corpse. This action was their way of dealing with the ridicule that would arise if they carried the corpse by the crane.

Theories

Stages and phases

The grief process portrayed by the characters in this movie is consistent with the theoretical perspective that puts loss into stages and phases. Under this theoretical perspective, grief is explained as a pattern of responses to death of a loved one, which are predictable and orderly. The grieving of Mama Bonnie after the loss of her husband as well as the children when she dies can be understood as a sequence of reactions to the two incidences of death. Before the intense grief starts, which is depression, there is a stage of shock and anger immediately after the loss. Thereafter, one experiences a stage of acceptance and moves on from the loss.

Dual process model

The grieving in the movie is also significantly consistent with the dual process model. In this theoretical perspective, it is recommended that avoiding grief can be useful or harmful. This dual process model recommends that expression of the emotions of sadness and controlling these reactions until the bereaved person moves on are both important. People have to express their feelings after the loss of a loved one then cope with these emotions until they get to the point of restoration. The children of Mama Bonnie demonstrate this theoretical perspective in the perfect way. Gilbert Grapes and his siblings like Arnie strongly feel sad for losing their mother when she dies after Arnie’s birthday party. However, they also control their feelings and feel relieved by their mother’s death because she was a figure of ridicule in the locality. 

Rituals

Various rituals also play out in the film. For instance, when one dies, the corpse has to be lifted using a lift before being buried. This ritual is commonly practiced in Iowa, U.S.A. The practice has been in this region for a very long time. It is contained in the historical books about Iowa. 

Gender, Ethnicity, Culture

Gender, ethnicity and culture play a very important role in how the characters react to the losses that they experience in the movie. For the males like Grapes they have a strong heart and control their feelings of sorrow and depression after the loss. For the females they are weak-hearted and the depression of the loss affects them greatly.

Warning signs

There are warning signs before the children of Mama Bonnie lose her to death. Bonnie’s death came on gradually, but her children did not take a step of intervention to save her life. The intervention needed for Mama Bonnie was simply making her body active through regular and intensive physical exercise. Her increasing weight as she continued leading the sedentary life on the couch watching television was the clear sign of her imminent death. Had she been engaged in intensive exercise and regular physical exercise, she would not have died.