Big Love

Kelli and I watched What's Eating Gilbert Grape last night. Kelli had to watch it for Class Day at Milton - I guess they were talking about it at some Class Thing. Anyhow, I'd never seen it before. It was pretty good. I've always liked Johnny Depp (someday I must tell you the story of how we met him and his wife in the Park in Rome), and Mary Steenbergen. And Leonardo Di Caprio does pull off a very convincing kid with mental deficiencies. When it came out, I remember I as at the age (29) where I was starting to feel that young people were trying to be cooler than me, and so I pooh-poohed their pretense of deep experience and wouldn't go near the movie. Now that I am old, old old I have more respect for the work of people younger than me - since so many people are younger, now.

Now I really was surprised and impressed by Darlene Cates as Mamma. Like so many people, I'm sure, we wondered what had happened to her, and how and whether she was making out, given her extraordinary girth.

Happily, she still seems to be with us. I was really struck by a quote of hers on IMBD:

"I wish everyone that's kind of hiding away at home still could understand or could have the same experience that I did. Once I did the Sally show, all of a sudden I realized that if I went out and people stared at me, I wouldn't know if they were staring at me because I was fat or because they recognized me from being on TV. That empowered me.

I had to make a choice, I could stay where I was and be miserable, or I could take a risk and do something exciting. I talked with the author, Peter Hedges. There were some things in the book that I didn't like. We talked about those extensively and I trusted him because the character was based on somebody that meant something to him in his life. So I knew that it wouldn't be anything horrible. As we went along I was so proud of the way that the character was portrayed and so proud of the way that the children came around to see that this woman had these good qualities, and how much she really did care about her family."

With America's horrible problem with obesity - which we see all over, especially when we travel out to Missouri to visit Kelli's relatives - it's important to remember the human being that is stuck in there...