What's Eating Gilbert Grape was the film I chose to correlate with my media project. The movie was entertaining and had a very unique perspective of the family system. It was not the average Caucasian family that most media portrayed, but rather a highly dysfunctional family. I wanted to take a different approach to the media project and break it down by family members (characters) and then combine the family aspects. Each family member has a unique personality and fuels every aspect of the family system. I will first discuss the premise of the film before going into detail about each family member. Then, towards the end, I will look at the family as a whole unit with various parts. The movie "What's eating Gilbert Grape" is about a family going through hardships in a small town of Endora, Iowa. The city is very small and everyone knows each other. Gilbert's family consists of his mother and siblings who live in the same dilapidated house. The film begins with Gilbert as the narrator and in the very first minutes of the opening we learn that Gilbert's father has committed suicide and his brother Larry has left to pursue a higher education. Larry was the only one to break the poverty line and never communicate with his family again. Gilbert described Larry as the one who got away, early in the film. Bonnie Grape has 5 children but only 4 out of 5 live with her in their shack. The children are mentioned from oldest to youngest: Larry, Amy, Gilbert, Arnie, and Ellen. Bonnie Grape is extremely obese and has been suffering from depression since her husband (Albert Grape) committed suicide in the basement. Albert Grape was described in a brief mention of the film as an alcoholic who hangs himself in the base... middle of paper... roles in children's lives. The Grape family was not perfect nuclear family by any means. But they remained united despite the trials and tribulations the family faced. It wasn't easy for Gilbert to be the primary breadwinner of his family at a young age and not be able to explore life. Amy also gave up much of her social life to take on the role of mother. The family managed to overcome all the problems they faced by staying together and forming a greater bond. Even after Bonnie died on Arnie's eighteenth birthday and their only home burned down, they remained close. The mother's death opens a door to freedom, even if this sounds wrong in the context. But the children were free to go about their lives and build stronger bonds. The love was for the whole family and that's what really matters in the end.