Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise and the Academy Award winning film ‘Rain Man’

Winner of four Academy Awards, best picture winner Rain Man (1988) offered a serious yet comedic first look for many across America and the world into life as a person on the autism spectrum. The film starred Dustin Hoffman in his Academy Award winning role for lead actor as Raymond Babbitt, the man experiencing the condition.

(Dustin Hoffman as Raymond Babbitt, left, and Tom Cruise as Charlie Babbitt in the film Rain Man).

Tom Cruise plays Raymond Babbitt’s younger, high stakes deal-making brother Charlie Babbitt. Until such time as the death of their father and the declaration of their father’s will, Charlie had grown up estranged both from his father and his brother. Much of the story of the film concerns itself with being an exposition of one possible path for the expression of autism, bridging the gap of the estrangement of two brothers, and finally resolving the tension of a highly leveraged business deal that the younger brother Charlie and his business partners had undertaken before the terms of the story had been laid out for the audience.

(Michael D. Roberts as Vern, left, and Gerald R. Molen as Dr. Bruner in the film Rain Man).

An early portion of the movie introduces us to the terms of how the movie experience the audience will be given. Academy Award winning screenwriters Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow give us Gerald R. Molen as Dr. Bruner and Michael D. Roberts as Vern, a main caregiver for Raymond Babbitt, a compassionate early take into what life is like for Raymond. Routine and structure as a means of interacting with an overwhelming world are early examples of Raymond’s truth that are revealed, in what feels compassionately, through these introductions and through the film.

(Valeria Golino as Susanna, left, and Dustin Hoffman as Raymond Babbitt in the film Rain Man).

Susanna, as played by Valeria Golino, is first introduced to us as Charlie Babbitt’s love interest. Susanna’s role in the movie is aimed largely at supporting Charlie’s character in his emotional journey as he, Charlie, and Raymond drive from Ohio to California. Much is shared between the brothers, of their past both recent and long ago, over the course of a journey that includes a famous visit to Las Vegas, Nevada.

(Rain Man director Barry Levinson in an uncredited doctor’s role in the film Rain Man).

The film makes its decisive pitch towards resolution near Charlie Babbitt’s California home, where the truths of Raymond Babbitt’s needs and the disposition of the future are revealed. In having offered something new and fresh, the film Rain Man was a clear and relevant success. That the film won Barry Levinson an Academy Award as best director in a film that took a sometimes comedic look at what is largely a serious subject is telling. My recommendation is that the film Rain Man be added to your must see list, which I bolster with my rating of 4.25-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Wednesday, October 23, 2019