RAIN MAN
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1989 Jeff Meyer
After seeing RAIN MAN a few weeks ago, I regret not having seen it last year, as it would have certainly been on my top 10 list for 1988. Barry Levinson continues his run of making what I would term "small" pictures with big-name actors, with a pretty successful eye for casting. Here he takes a road trip across America with two brothers, played by Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. Cruise is Charlie, a wheeler-dealer who's slick, self-centered personality keeps everyone at bay. When his father, who Charlie has not seen since he left home as a teenager, dies, Charlie discovers that the majority of the estate has been left to a brother, Raymond, he never knew existed: an autistic man who is something of an idiot savant, who can juggle fantastic figures in his head but is panicked by the slightest deviation from the routine he is used to. Hoping to get some of the estate to rescue his own flagging business, Charlie kidnaps Ray to Los Angeles, but must travel by road due to Ray's nervousness about flying.
This gives Levinson the chance to use the odd Americana vistas he knows so well as a backdrop to contrast two men who have severe inabilities to communicate, one due to a rare physical disability, and the other due to a far more common emotional one. A friend of my family's has a son who is autistic, and many of Ray's handicaps and abilities (particularly the number-crunching) were familiar. Charlie's particular handicap is also familiar, and from a source much closer to home; I suspect many will recognize it, in those close to them and in themselves. The story of how these two men bridge their particular handicaps is moving while rarely being cloying. After years of sluggish, bloated pictures by "actors' directors" winning Oscars, it's nice to finally see a director who deserves the title appear on the scene.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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