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| Bradley Cooper admires Jennifer Lawrence's acting ability and beautiful hair. |
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| Leanardo DiCaprio admires Johnny Depp's acting ability and beautiful hair. |
Once again our films are separated by time, it's been twenty years since WEGG, SLP is showing at cinemas now. And they have fairly similar plots. In WEGG, Gilbert (Depp, who would go on to break our hearts in Edward Scissorhands) is weighed down by his disabled, but ultimately lovable brother Arnie (DiCaprio, who would go on to confuse us in Inception and nauseate us in Romeo + Juliet) and a morbidly obese mother. But he's contented with his burden. That is until he meets the worldly and generally fantastic Becky (Juliette Lewis, who would go on to do nothing of note). Then he's faced with the choice of upholding his huge responsibilities and seeking fulfilment by thinking of himself for once. Can love set him free?
Twenty years later, and Pat (Bradley Cooper, star of Limitless and The Hangover) is also having a hard time of it. He's just been released from a mental hospital, after being diagnosed as bipolar after nearly bludgeoning his wife's secret lover to death. Without his wife he's lost, reduced to ranting about Ernst Hemingway to his parents at four in the morning. That is until he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence, star of Winter's Bone and The Hunger Games), who is just as unstable as he is after her husband's death. To everyone's surprise they bond over antidepressants, and this is just the beginning of a turbulent relationship that could either save them both or break them. Can love set them free? At this point I am somehow resisting breaking out in to "the power of love!".
The thing that really links these movies are the fantastic acting talent (only in WEGG is this really coupled with a top notch screenplay). Johnny Depp is wonderful as Gilbert Grape. He somehow doesn't have to say anything to convey Grape's complicated relationship with his brother and mother. This is the kind of performance that is needed to underpin the film. Meanwhile, Leanardo DiCaprio is heartbreaking as Arnie. This is arguably one of his best performances, especially considering his age at the time. Juliette Lewis is given a much easier role as Grape's love interest, which perhaps is half the reason why she can never live up to the emotional whack of the other two leads.
Moving in to the twenty-first century, and our leads both share Depp's incredible ability for playing a diverse range of characters. Bradley Cooper has so far played a drunken layabout and a hyperintelligent multi-millionaire. Here he walks the difficult line of making it impossible for any of the other characters to spend time with him, but yet make the audience like him. And he just about succeeds, more impressive is how he deals with Pat's subtle transformation under the influence of Tiffany. It's fair to say I'm a little in love with Jennifer Lawrence, and so is a good percentage of my generation (she's one of the few people who deserve the title of teen icon). So far she's plaid a feisty girl forced to confront big bad forces to save her family in Winter's Bone (where she alone was responsible for carrying the story), a discriminated-against-mutant-changeling-blue-person in X-Men: First Class and a ruthless killer-with-a-heart in The Hunger Games. Here she makes the audience fall in love with Tiffany while conveying subtly her inner struggles.
Both films also convey themes of responsibility perfectly. An insistent leitmotif in WEGG is characters telling Grape he's got to do better. He dreams of happiness for his difficult family, but when asked what he wants for himself he replies "to be a good person". And as Gilbert discovers that's not always easy. And what sacrifices should he be prepared to make to be a good person? In a telling comment, Becky describes Gilbert as not really having lived at all in his efforts to please everyone else. In SLP, there's a sense that Tiffany's sister has let her down completely, and Pat's brother is not a lot better. The shining example of placing too much on delicate shoulders is Pat's father (a classic Robert DeNiro performance), a completely OCD patriarch who demands that his son watch endless Eagles games with him, and blames him when they lose. Meanwhile Tiffany expects him to practise dancing with her endlessly on pain of death. Is this a wise burden to place on a man with bipolar?
Their take on mental illness and discrimination is dealt with wonderfully as well. WEGG tackles Arnie's disability's, depression and obesity with almost flawless delicacy (although the mother is made so fat that we're encouraged to laugh at her on several occasions, and then be ashamed). In SLP, both our leads are delicate and unstable, but their woes are nothing compared to those of the Grape family. However, the film still feels like a celebration that we're all mad in our own way, and that's a good thing. In the case of Tiffany, her directness coupled with her delicacy makes her charming rather than a focus of discrimination.
So, which is better? On acting terms: too close to call. In terms of direction: SLP has the odd arty shot, and there are a few clumsy fades-to-black in WEGG, but as a sustained effort they're just about even. In terms of screenplay: I think WEGG is better, as it frames an age old problem of responsibility vs. personal happiness which has troubled us during the rise of individualism. While SLP has some brilliant one liners, and the dialogue for WEGG occasionally feels a little contrived, there's still something poetic about WEGG which SLP seems to lack. And so, the winner is: What's Eating Gilbert Grape?.
Silver Linings Playbook: 6/10
What's Eating Gilbert Grape: 8/10
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