Review of a Thriller
The Skeleton Key
Director: Iain Softley
Producer: Clayton Townsend, Daniel Bobker, Stacey Sher
Cast: Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard, Joy Bryant
Running time: 104 minutes
Rating: PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, partial nudity, thematic material.

By Rosemarie Herbert

From the start, something is not quite right at home, as The Skeleton Key opens to dripping scenery and creepy music. You spend a lot of the film sitting on the edge of your seat, mentally begging Kate Hudson not to go into the locked attic room or silently urging her to just go home. Hudson does a good job of playing Caroline as a plucky, determined young woman, but the character seems to lack some depth and certainly is missing a large amount of logic and common sense.

Caroline is a young southern personal care attendant, who has discovered that she wants something more from life than just looking after people in a callous aged-care business. Her dream is to become a nurse, so she takes a job as in-house carer. The job description, which includes a pay check of $1000 a week, should set off alarm bells for Caroline, but instead we find her driving off in her little VW to meet the dying man and his eccentric, possessive wife. A dilapidated gas station run by a forbidding family sets the scene, creating a palpably distressing atmosphere that will guarantee you jump in your seat.

The Skeleton Key is based on hoodoo, which is actually different from voodoo. It manages to sketchily discuss the difference, for hoodoo is the practical application of voodoo, the religion. Hoodoo is a combination of spells and superstitions that are derived from a variety of folk beliefs. Care has been taken by the director to ensure these details are correct, and on the special features disc, there is a section by Voodoo Priestess Mama Lola, Voodoo Practitioner and Voodoo Initiate Princess Wekenon, who explain the history of voodoo. Poor Caroline has no such easy option, choosing instead to have her African American friend (Joy Bryant) explain it all to her on her infrequent visits back to town.

Hoodoo, we are assured, only works if you believe in it, and Caroline steadily increases her fear as Ben (John Hurt), her disabled patient, shows all the signs and symptoms of the cursed. A failed attempt to bring him to his senses using a hoodoo ritual, as well as his wife Violet’s (Gena Rowlands) spurious worry about Ben’s medications, draws Caroline further into the mysteries of the house.

Violet protests that Caroline isn’t “going to understand the house” and who would? Creative camera angles when Caroline first visits the eerie attic imply that the house itself is indeed watching her. This includes the typical horror movie’s shaking door that “no-one has opened” and a strange collection of be-cobwebbed hoodoo objects.

The film is made by the great casting and excellent direction, but is let down slightly by its screen writer, Ehren Kruger, who seems to mistake the thriller genre for some kind of V8 acceleration. The first 75 minutes are slow and controlled, building well on the hoodoo focus and general air of creepiness. Unfortunately, the story suddenly rushes into a frenzied climax, as Caroline attempts to escape with Ben in tow in an invalid interpretation required chase scene.

Without saying too much, the twist ending is a shock, because the requisite happy ending just doesn’t show its head.

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a memorable story of desire colliding with responsibility. Gilbert Grape must look after Arnie 24/7, but also stop himself from becoming like his father, with no hopes or needs. This fine line is sliced by his relationship with Betty Carver, who has her own problems or desire and responsibility conflicting, but repaired by his new relationship with Betty.

Gilbert Grape is a prime example of the conflict between desire and responsibility. His responsibilities include looking after Arnie to “keep him out of trouble” and to “keep up the repairs” of the Grape family home. After Gilbert becomes involved with Becky, he wants to spend a night with her watching the sundown but needs to bath Arnie. Gilbert attempts to teach Arnie to wash himself so that Gilbert can go to Becky, but this fails. Arnie spends a miserable night in the bath, because he is unable to understand Gilbert. Here, desire collides with responsibility and wins with bad consequences, because Gilbert does not yet know how to balance the two.

Gilbert attempts to keep everyone happy – having a love-less affair with Mrs. Carver and looking after the house. In this case, Gilbert’s attempts to keep Momma ignorant of the house’s state are successful but his repair jobs are unable to fix the problems. This leads to guilt, and eventually an implosion in which the house is destroyed, along with his previous life.

Mrs. Carver has responsibilities to her family, but she ignores them in order to fulfill her desire of Gilbert. Whenever Gilbert appears, she tells her children to go outside and “play”. By ignoring her responsibilities, Mrs. Carver creates tension in her family home and eventually this is reflected in Mr. Carver’s heart attack. However her desires ultimately lose to her responsibilities because Gilbert stops obeying her orders.

Becky is the catalyst of change that provides a new outlook on life for Gilbert. She asks Gilbert what he wants, but he replies with all the things his responsibilities to his family require of him: “for Momma to go to aerobics classes, for Amy to have a new job.” When she asks “What do you want, just for you?” he replies “I want to be a good person.” This is a major turning point in the film. After this, Gilbert starting thinking of his own wellbeing more, but still fulfils his responsibilities. At the very end of the film, a year after Arnie’s fateful 18th birthday party, Gilbert takes Arnie (symbolizing his responsibilities) and joins Becky and her Grandmother in their travels around the world (fulfilling his desire). The conflict between desires and responsibility finally ends and a peace is brought to Gilbert’s world.

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a film presenting desire colliding with responsibility with different results. Gilbert himself is the main target of this collision as well as Betty Carver.

Another year 11 english essay.

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.

I mean the wonderful kind that you bake for your partner, or just give out randomly. Cookies are love. So spread the love, and have a cookie.

The same feeling you get from having a wonderful cookie, is multiplied when you actually make the cookies. Everybody loves home-made cookies. And if you make them for that special someone, all the better.

Share them with everyone, whether you like them or not. Cookies are guaranteed to create feelings of warmth and brightness in their day. You never know, that cookie might spark off a new friendship.

Don’t believe it? Go borrow/download/beg/steal “Stranger Than Fiction”. It’s a great movie.

~ Darkthorn