Rain Man

I'm getting around to movies that I recorded off of TCM during 31 Days of Oscar, which is one of the months that generally has more recent movies on TCM. So as I get around to those, there's going to be a bit less in the way of studio-era movies for a bit. Granted, the first of the "more recent" movies is already 35 years old: Rain Man.

Rain Man is one of those movies where I think most people know the basic story. Tom Cruise plays Charlie Babbitt, who is living out in Los Angeles where he works as some sort of importer/exporter. His current job is to bring in several Lamborghinis for wealthy people who have already paid for them, and which he needs to deliver to pay off a substntial loan. However, the EPA is holding them up over emissions testing. The business, and Charlie's being away from it, is going to be a running subplot throughout the movie.

But Charlie gets a phone call with more pressing information: his estranged father has recently died out in Cincinnati. There's the funeral and the will and all that fun stuff, so Charlie heads east with his girlfriend Susanna (Valeria Golino). They get to Cincinnati, and when Charlie meets with the lawyer, he finds out something disheartening to him, which is that Dad decided to write him mostly out of the will. Charlie had left home as a teenager over a dispute with Dad's vintage Buick Roadmaster car, so Dad was kind enough to leave that for Charlie, as well as a bunch of rose bushes. But the bulk of the money, some $3 million goes to a trust with an unnamed beneficiary. Charlie is pissed, and wants what he thinks is his fair share.

The will mentions something about a place called "Wallbrook", so Charlie heads there. He finds out it's an institution for those who can't live independently as adults, which is stunning enough. More stunning is that the beneficiary of the trust is Charlie's much older brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), of whose existence Charlie was never even told. (Raymond was put in the institution right at the time their mother died, which was when Charlie was two years old.) Raymond is an autistic savant, someone who has a brilliand memory and a way with numbers, but has no social skills when it comes to interpersonal relations or the things it would take to be able to hold down a job, hence the institution. And Raymond seems genuinely to like the routine at the institution.

But Charlie wants to get to know his brother better. And, he sees the possibility of having a bargaining chip. So he takes Raymond out of Wallbrook with the plan of the two of them going back to Los Angeles and Charlie getting control over the trust now that Raymond would need care out in Los Angeles. But Raymond is exceedingly difficult to take care of, hence the institution. And Raymond doesn't like any changes to his routine. As the two make their way to Los Angeles, Charlie learns as much about himself as he does about his older brother.

Rain Man won the Best Picture, but I'm sorry to say I don't think it's really stood the test of time. For me, I think a lot of that comes down to the script, which to me has some key plot holes, starting with Dad never having told Charlie about the older brother and being able to keep it such a good secret all these years. Seriously, Charlie never learned about Raymond at any time in his childhood? Raymond also seems written to be miraculously in the right spot to be an obnoxious burden on someone trying to care for him but without being dangerous enough to scupper the whole trip before the two of them got out of Ohio. It all feels like a by-the-numbers road trip with one of the characters learning about himself. Something like Harry and Tonto is much more charming in the way it pulls this off. The acting from the two leads, however, is excellent; Hoffman won the Oscar while Cruise didn't even get a nomination.

When it comes to movies from 1988, looking through the Oscars list I think I'd pick A Cry in the Dark and Running on Empty as a couple of films that at least deserved a Best Picture nomination. As for what I'd actually select as the winner, I'm not certain since I haven't seen enough nominees to decide on that. So watch Rain Man and judge for yourself whether it should have won.