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moments on incongruous juxtaposition, such as Ken Carver´s bovine head trampolining up from behind the garden hedge as Gilbert and Betty are getting down to a bit of illicit. Häagen Dasz-inspired passion, or Endora´s new mobile Burger Barn arriving just as Ken´s coffin is being laid to rest. Here, what´s humorous is the sequence of events, not simply the events themselves. "What´s Eating Gilbert Grape" is evocative in the way it draws - and draws on - minutiae, so the overall picture is the sum of accumulated detail. Bonnie Grape´s way of clutching her tub of popcorn with simultaneous resentment and possessiveness conveys more about her self-loathing and her defiance than any trite verbal exchange about why she slumped into obesity. Like Hallsström´s earlier "My Life As A Dog", this is a film of sentiment that eschews sentimentality, despite the main storylines concerning Gilbert and his family and his relationship with the outsider Becky. There are moments ripe for cloying treatment, like Gilbert intense meaning-of-life conversation with Becky, first amid the haystacks at sunset, everything bathed in rich golden haloes, and second beside a campfire at night. If only Gilbert could fathom her cryptic, whimsical statements and questions. There´s an awareness of the dangers of being mawkish that ensures any mindless rhapsody is side-stepped, interrupted, deflated: a pragmatic approach to tearjerk material best summed up by the carefully unpatronising treatment of Arnie. If there is any underpinning theme in "What´s Eating Gilbert Grape", it´s a notion of space. From the opening sequence, when the convoy of glistening silver campers bringing Becky into town snakes over the lazy hillside towards Gilbert and Arnie, there´s a sharp distinction made between the parochial day-to-day aimlessness of Endora, and the potential life elsewhere.
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