What's Eating Gilbert Grape

In the dusty, forgotten orbit of Endora, Iowa, twenty-something Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) doesn't live for himself; he lives to keep his family afloat. Following his father's sudden death, Gilbert inherits the unspoken duty of household patriarch, tending to his morbidly obese mother Bonnie (Darlene Cates)—who hasn't set foot outside in seven years—and fiercely shielding his developmentally disabled younger brother, Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose fragile survival past his eighteenth birthday is deemed a minor medical miracle. Gilbert's days are defined by a quiet, suffocating routine of shifts at the dying local grocery store, suburban affairs, and chasing Arnie down from the town water tower. But when Becky (Juliette Lewis), a free-spirited traveler stranded with her grandmother, rolls into town, Gilbert is forced to confront a terrifying question: What happens to a caregiver when he realizes he has a life of his own worth saving?