What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a 1993 American drama film directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis, Darlene Cates, and Leonardo DiCaprio. The film follows twenty-four-year-old Gilbert (Depp), a grocery clerk caring for his morbidly obese mother and developmentally disabled younger brother in a sleepy midwestern town. Peter Hedges wrote the screenplay, adapted from his 1991 novel of the same name.