- Accidental Aesop: "Taking care of someone with a disability is a tremendous responsibility and you need the proper training and qualities to handle it. If you are struggling, there's nothing wrong with seeking help or looking for facilities to provide the necessary care and supervision for them. You can do more harm than good if you try to play a role you are not suited for." Although Arnie's family loves him and the community understands that Arnie isn't being malicious when he's climbing the water tower, it's clear that Gilbert is overstressed and overburdened in his role as Arnie's caregiver. Their family doesn't share the responsibility of taking care of him because they are too young, too flawed, or they lack the necessary character qualities, making Gilbert feel that he's the only one capable of looking after him properly.
- Adaptation Displacement: There is a book of the same name that came out 2 years before the movie; this is a little known fact.
- Alternate Character Interpretation:
- Some think that Bonnie knew the strain of walking up the stairs would kill her and went upstairs to sleep in her bedroom for the last time.
- Ellen's bratty toward her family, but she may have been bullied and teased by other kids for years over her intellectually disabled brother, her obese mother, the fact that her father committed suicide before she was born, and the family's overall poverty. She could be trying to distance herself from her family simply so her peers can accept her, or she could be suffering from the same very valid stress and resentment as Gilbert, but lack the maturity to bottle up her feelings the way he does. Considering what happens when Gilbert finally snaps, Ellen's form of venting might be cruel and annoying, but it also might be more healthy than Gilbert's.
- Funny Moments: After Gilbert cracks from Arnie shouting "We're not going anywhere!" and Ellen's awful trumpet playing, he starts his car up and stares at Ellen who promptly flips him the bird. After he revs the attention and she smirks, he proceeds to back over close to her to scare her. Her shocked and annoyed reaction says it all.
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- While she had lost a significant amount of weight by the time it happened, it's eerily prophetic that Darlene Cates, like her character, eventually died in her sleep.
- Juliette Lewis would go on to star in The Other Sister, a film about a woman with similar cognitive abilities as Arnie. However it was seen as much more sentimental and condescending than Leonardo DiCaprio's very realistic portrayal.
- He Really Can Act:
- Darlene Cates, who had no previous acting experience and was only cast because no professional actress was big enough, displays her natural talent for performing when Bonnie confronts the Sheriff at the police station.
- Leonardo DiCaprio as Arnie. At the time of the film's release, Leo was a relative unknown, so there were a significant number of people who didn't realize he wasn't actually developmentally disabled, as his performance shows it in all its discomforting glory.
- Parody Displacement: Many people discovered this movie through the American Dad! episode "Irregarding Steve," which features a b-plot of key scenes from the film being reenacted by squirrels.
- Retroactive Recognition: The cast list features a veritable Who's Who of future big-name actors.
- As mentioned above, this was one of Leonardo DiCaprio's first starring roles, three years before he'd become a household name with Romeo + Juliet and four years before he became a bona fide superstar with Titanic.
- This was also one of John C. Reilly's first big roles and while he'd have plenty of others over the next decade (especially under Paul Thomas Anderson), both dramatic and comic, it wouldn't be until Chicago (Musical) that he'd become one of the biggest stars of the 2000s and 2010s - starring in three Best Picture-nominated films in one year in 2002, and eventually playing the eponymous Wreck-It Ralph, among others.
- Values Dissonance: Not as negative as most examples. Mama, Amy, and Ellen obviously love Arnie and devote a lot of time and effort to take care of him. It's obvious that putting him in a group home or other facility is not, and has never been, an option. note However the love and care they give him means that they have not taught him any daily living skills that someone of his cognitive capacity should have. It’s not reasonable for Gilbert to think that Arnie could just suddenly bathe himself independently. But given a gradual release training he could learn to do it relatively short time. Arnie is never seen doing any chores or helping around the house when we see how burdened the other three siblings are. He has no physical limitations and could do basic tasks they’re doing, but instead they just let him run around and play. Finally there’s no reason Arnie couldn’t even have a job. It would likely need to be in a well supervised environment and again those opportunities might be limited. But it’s also a farming community and he could certainly work as a laborer on one of those.
- The Woobie: Practically the whole Grape family. It's implied that they were all pretty messed up to begin with, but it was the senior Mr. Grape's suicide that sent them all over the edge.
- Bonnie. She's eaten herself into morbid obesity at the expense of her good looks and is now the laughing stock of the town, to the point that her family decide to burn their house with her body inside it just so she won't suffer any further humiliation in death by trying to get her immovably heavy corpse out by crane, and it appears she cares about nothing but food and being waited on. Yet toward the end of the film, Gilbert is surprised to learn that Bonnie is painfully aware of what she's done to herself, her family, and especially to him.
- Gilbert himself is more of an Iron Woobie: He goes through a lot out of his love for his family, even though it's shown that he has his limits.
- Arnie, to a certain extent. His condition makes him a burden on his family, nobody can do anything about it, and Arnie himself is completely unaware of how much trouble he's causing. It all clearly takes its toll on the Grapes, to the point that Gilbert becomes frustrated enough to beat him, and yet there are frequently moments where it's plain that Arnie is more than capable of great and genuine love, particularly for Gilbert.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Ymmv/WhatsEatingGilbertGrape
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