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Lasse Hallstrom shows us that the traditional family is not always the best family. Discuss.

In the film “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” Lasse Hallstrom shows us that the traditional family is not always the best family. This raises the question: what is traditional? Is it a family with a mother, father and children? By this rule, the only traditional family in the film is the Carvers, who definitely have problems.

The Grape family may be called typical of the current times, being a single parent family, but not traditional. The best family in the film consists of Becky and her grandmother, two happy souls travelling the country.
Hallstrom’s example of a traditional family, the Carvers, shows the audience that it is not always the best to be traditional. Although the Carvers are “respectable”, their relationships with each other are superficial. Mrs. Carver doesn’t care for her children, telling them to “go outside” so that she can organise Gilbert’s “delivery”. Mr. Carver is very insecure and this is noticeable in his daily life. He has no idea how to play with his children, and his marriage is falling apart because his wife is having an affair with Gilbert. He tells Gilbert that they “need to talk”, possibly about the affair. Soon after this, the strain kills him, leaving his wife and two children slightly happier and able to do what they want to do – leave Endora. When the family becomes modern, things become better.

Becky and her grandmother are the best family in the film, modern and “worldly”. Consisting of only two members, they are happy in their caravan “just passing through”. They are not even close to being a traditional family, but they are still the most functional out of any of the others. However, Becky became the person she appears to be in the film because of her suffering as she grew up. This shows that good things can come from bad beginnings, such as Gilbert’s static life in Endora. Becky brings Gilbert out of his self-imposed shell and stops him becoming like his father, who gave up on life and committed suicide. By bringing Gilbert into her family, she lightens the load of Arnie and helps him to begin a new life, and eventually family, of his own.

The Grapes are concentrated on by Hallstrom as an example of a dysfunctional family. Every time the audience sees the family sitting together, there is an argument taking place. When the kids and Momma are making plans for Arnie’s 18th birthday party, it becomes a fight, especially between Gilbert and Ellen, over who does what. Momma says “Can’t we do anything as a family?”, further highlighting the irony of the situation. The children are the ones looking after the parent, not the other way around as in traditional families. However, when Momma dies, in spite of all the arguments, the remaining Grapes ban together to save their mother from the shame of being lifted out of the house by crane.

Gilbert and Arnie are inexplicably bonded together by family love. Gilbert protects his brother from anyone who might hit him because “nobody hurts Arnie”, even though at some times he feels very frustrated with him. Compared with the Carver family, the Grape family are happier, because they are supportive of each other and attempt to understand each others needs at a basic level.

Traditional families, the Carvers, are shown to be lacking something important in Lasse Hallstrom’s film What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? The members are self-centred and are unable to fit into society, unlike the members of the modern family, Becky and her grandmother. The Grape family is an example of a semi-modern family which is dysfunctional, but throughout the film, things become better for them. Momma’s death is the final release for all of the Grapes to be free to do their own things.

Year 11 English essay.