All I have to say about this movie is oh.my.god. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of it, or ever seen it, it's obviously an older movie before Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio's careers really took off. But you NEED to see this.
These two men have always been, and probably always be, two of my favorite actors because...ta da...they can act. You can't really say that about too many people . But it is super obvious in this movie the talent that Leo possesses because he is retarded and does it very convincingly. That sounds a little rough. Leo's character is mentally ill; Leo plays this character very well. There, better.
Now, let me not get too ahead of myself, and tell you what threw me onto this movie. I was stuck in a motel room, browsing through E! Online on Hulu, and found a clip about this woman named Darlene Cates. She is a morbidly obese woman best known for her role in this film, and she has recently decided that she wants to get back into acting. Now I wasn't too curious about her - at first - but I was curious about the fact that JD and LD were in a movie together. So I found it online and watched it.
Maybe you guys remember films such as "Hairspray," and maybe you remember how being overweight was stigmatized during certain eras. Even though it is still frowned upon today (more for concern of people's health than anything I think), people are much more open and accepting about being 200-300 lbs overweight. However, "back in the day," appropriate protocol would be to publicly humiliate the overweight person. In this particular movie, it is also "part of the norm" for little children to peep into the house and exclaim, "I saw her! I saw her!"
The movie is centralized around Leonardo's character, who is mentally ill (with what it is never said, but based on modern diagnosis probably autism), which has also been pretty stigmatized in the past. People would get shot or sent to the looney bin if anything was remotely "unnatural" with their behavior. Oh, they could also be put in the attic by the family to be isolated and never be heard of by friends and neighbors.
I'm not gonna lie, this movie is kind of harsh when dealing with these two situations. It makes your cringe in disbelief, but you have to continue watching it...it's like a car wreck.
Now, the movie is named after Johnny Depp's character, so obviously he is in it more than I've made it seem. He is the brother that is trying to hold the family together at his own expense. The tragic hero if you will. He plays a grocer who schmoozes with a neighbor by delivering groceries. No seriously, he delivers groceries. And sex. Like a, small town pool boy, ya know? He takes care of his little brother, hates his mom, but realizes that he has somehow enabled her to become so fat (but not really). He wants to run away from his family, like his older brother did. He doesn't want to be tied down or attached, he wants to live his own life. So of course we get to see how he goes about that...in the last scene.
So back to Darlene Cates. I kind of became with obsessing about who she is, so here it goes. Her parents got divorced when she was little, and she blamed herself (remember how divorces weren't an everyday occurrence? I don't...). Through blaming herself she found food, which found her weight gain. She eventually got up to around 500 lbs. At one point and time she had gastric-bypass surgery, lost about 100 lbs then gained it back. Because of all her excess, she got a pelvis infection and was bed ridden for 2 years, gained more weight and became kind of a shut in, never leaving her house for something like four years (which is largely what her character in this movie is based off of). She appeared on the Sally Jessy Raphael show on something like, "I'm too big to leave my house," and that is where the producer saw her. Now the events above are not necessarily in order, they are just what I remember from looking her up on the internet. If you are curious about her, you should look her up to. It's not hard. It's the internet. Type it in the search bar.
Now of course I didn't tell you all about this movie because I want you to see it for yourself. There are some shocks, secrets, and surprises that when you see it you will all be like "Jackie didn't mention this!" Darn tootin' I didn't! Now, I am off to the bookstore...rumor has it there is a good book for me to read and review.
Ta ta for now!
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