Rain Man

This movie isn’t an action packed movie by any means. Rather slow, but the value of lessons learned in the movie about brotherly love and treating people who are different from us right fills that void. I hadn’t watched it in a long time but remembered liking it so thought I’d watch it again after being in this class so that I could see it in a different light.

Dustin Hoffman does a skillful job of filling the part of Raymond or Rain Man through his facial expressions, or maybe I should say non-expressions and vague, empty looking eyes keeping him at a distance from establishing almost any relationship with the other characters in the movie. Also, the stiff body and shuffling feet help us to feel the character is truly autistic, and even though they describe several times the mental abilities of someone with autism or who is autistic savant, it is helpful for the viewer to know a little about the condition which affects more and more people each year. Prior to watching this movie we viewed a 60-Minutes broadcast about a deaf savant who was unable to add 1+2 or do much of anything else, but when he heard music he could play it perfectly by sound, so the timing for watching the movie couldn’t have been better.

Hoffman’s fits or tantrums also fulfill his ability to impersonate Raymond to the point where we believe he is not only Raymond but is autistic as well. He has a gift for becoming the character he’s portraying not only with his physical appearance but including such things as hand movements, head movements, body language and his voice intonations and tone. The costume designer did a great job in letting the viewer know just what kind of person Raymond was vs. Charlie by the way they were dressed.

Tom Cruise did a good job portraying the spoiled little rich kid Charlie, but his style and acting skills weren’t quite as developed in this movie as in some of his more recent movies. He did, although, play the part well by becoming Charlie Babbit, somewhat self-centered and only thinking about himself and his wants and needs most of the time and being downright mean and insensitive to his brother at the outset. In the scene where he and his girlfriend were supposed to be going to Palm Springs and he received the call from someone telling him his father had died, I could tell he didn’t have much of a connection with him with the exception of the fact that he thought there was money to be had, because there was no shock, no tears, no emotion. He did well portraying the cold, callous, jerk by calling his brother an idiot and retard and swearing every time he didn't get his way; quite immature. But, little by little you can see him come around and get closer to Ray even though you could tell that Ray irritated him.

It’s an interesting perspective to observe Ray (the one who had a reason) having tantrums or fits and then watching as the things he did actually made Charlie so upset that he had fits or outbursts as well, even though he was supposed to be the ‘normal’ one. I also thought the play on words telling us that Charlie needed the Rain Man whom he didn’t recall at one point come to life when he heard Ray say he was the Rain Man. And then fitting in the theme again when Ray tells him he can’t go out in the rain and so they are trapped into getting to know each other better by being stuck in the rain. So, really, Charlie changed character slowly from beginning to end and actually became more human and caring vs. the self-centered, fast-talking salesman character we’re introduced to at the beginning.

Considering the fact that there weren’t many actors in this movie, I think the director type-cast the correct people into the acting roles for the characters.

Also, the scenery and music made the movie enjoyable. I thought it was neat that they used the pictures Raymond had been taking throughout the movie during the credits.