Hello, hello, hello! Me again! You know what time it is! It’s going to be VERY hard for any movie to follow Rocky; it was just so good and unexpected that I was going to enjoy it so much (even becoming a little obsessed and watching the rest of the series in less than a week….). Good luck to the poor sucker that’s coming up.
So, after consulting my trusty random number generator website, the year we have received is….1989! Now, I am someone who LOVES the 80s and most everything about it. I love the movies, the music, the television, ugh just drown me in 80s pop culture please! Wikipedia states that the movie that won best picture in 1989 was a movie called Rain Man. I have never seen this movie, but I’ve definitely heard of it before. I know nothing about it, and the plot on Letterboxd has me intrigued. However, one of the first things I usually look at is the cast, and OH BOY I’m in for a ride because Tom Cruise is one of the lead actors in this movie…I hate Tom Cruise with a burning passion…so we’ll see how this turns out…I’m predicating that this movie will just be “eh” for my standards and enjoyment. Check out my first post to see my reviewing criteria! See you all in 2 hours!
*113 Minutes Later*
That was definitely a movie! Let’s just say it did not exceed my expectations nor live up to Rocky…Spoilers ahead!
1. The plot itself was already extremely off-putting once I really understood what was going on. The Letterboxd synopsis did not really emphasize just how frustrating this movie was going to be. Essentially, the movie is about Charlie Babbitt, some kind of car trader/salesman/businessman, and his life after his estranged father dies and his business seems to be failing. His father was rich with a nice house and a Buick that caused the rift in their relationship, but Charlie finds out from his fathers will that the only thing he would be receiving would be the house and the Buick; no money. His fathers 3 million dollars would be going to a trustee that Charlie wasn’t allowed to know about. Somehow, he finds out who is holding the money, and it’s a man named Dr. Bruner at Walbrook psychiatric institution in Ohio.
There, Charlie and his girlfriend Susanna find out the receiver of the 3 million dollars is a brother Charlie didn’t know he had, Raymond, who is an “autistic savant”. Charlie then comes up with a plan to save his business by essentially kidnapping Raymond and taking him back to L.A., planning on either bargaining for his half of the money in exchange of giving Raymond back, or to gain custody of Raymond, which would mean he would be granted access to the 3 million dollars. The movie follows the brothers’ journey to L.A., minus Susanna because she didn’t agree with this plan, as Charlie repeatedly belittles Raymond because he doesn’t how understand autism works until finally, Charlie makes the connection that the “Rain Man” he had labelled as an imaginary friend from his childhood, was actually Raymond and that Raymond was sent away because everyone thought he was going to hurt a young Charlie. From this point on, Charlie still gets frustrated with Raymond, but it’s obvious there’s now a soft spot. In a last-ditch effort to get some money to save his business, and so he wouldn’t have to rely on Raymond’s money, Charlie 
takes Raymond to Las Vegas where Raymond uses the savant aspects of his autism to count the cards and wins Charlie $85,000. After Raymond wins this money, the pair meet up with Susanna again, Charlie and her make up, there’s a weird scene with Susanna and Raymond in an elevator, the casino finds out that they were counting cards but still lets them keep the money for some reason, and the brothers drive the rest of the way back to L.A. Throughout the movie, Charlie had been talking with his business partner/employee Lenny and a couple of lawyers in order to set up a custody hearing for Raymond. Once they get back to L.A., there’s a scene where it’s supposed to emphasize how Raymond cannot take care of himself, and then the brothers go to a psychiatric evaluation before the actual custody hearing. Here, Charlie relentlessly says that he wants to keep Raymond in L.A., but Dr. Bruner makes his final argument that Raymond belongs at Walbrook and that he is incapable of making decisions or caring for himself. Charlie and Raymond have a very sweet moment, and Charlie begrudgingly agrees to drop the case and let Raymond go back. The movie ends with them saying their goodbyes at the train station, but Charlie emphasizes that he will definitely come and visit him. While I did not agree with what was happening in this movie, or like a lot of the choices made by several characters, the plot was well-developed and I understood most of what was going on. A lot of stuff that was being talked about by Charlie about his business failing went over my head, but that’s definitely more of a me issue. Overall, the plot was very easy to follow and I think they executed their ideas well.
2. The characters in this movie were very complex. There were a couple side characters that could be mentioned, but I’d like to keep this brief, so I will be analyzing Charlie, Raymond, and Susanna. To start off strong, we’ll talk about Charlie, and oh boy do I have a lot to say about him. Charlie is your run-of-the-mill asshole businessman, as he spends the entire movie caring about no one but himself and who or what benefits him. By the end, we’re supposed to believe he’s some “changed man” who is actually not self-conceited anymore, but I find that extremely hard to believe. The first scene in the movie shows him literally snapping at a woman to make her do her job, and we found out in the NEXT scene that that woman, Susanna, is his girlfriend! Now, you shouldn’t treat any woman with that level of disrespect, like she’s just
some animal to be gestured at, but you definitely should not treat someone you supposedly love like that. If he treats his girlfriend like that, I don’t even wanna know how he treats a woman who he doesn’t care about. The next scene shows the two of them in the car, and they get into an argument because he’s refusing to talk to her, saying absolutely anything in the 45 minutes they’d be driving, and she points this out and his gets pissed that she’s being so “demanding” of him. Then he gets the call that his father is dead, and she tries to comfort him and he’s still angry. He spends the next couple of scenes disrespecting Susanna, one example being that he always makes her sit in the car whenever he gets to go do something, and just generally being rude to everyone he encounters. When they make it to Walbrook, Charlie finds out he has a brother because Raymond comes up to the car that Susanna was made to sit in by herself, and says he knows that car, as it was the Buick that Charlie had inherited from their father. Charlie spends the next couple of scenes repeatedly dropping the r-slur, calling Raymond stupid, getting angry with everyone around him, until he comes up with that stupid plan to kidnap Raymond. He, Susanna and Raymond get to a hotel, and a couple of verbal beatings later, Charlie and Susanna decide to have SEX for some reason, with their door WIDE open. Raymond wanders in, Charlie gets pissed and yells at him, and Susanna decides she’s had enough of this and leaves. So now, Raymond is left with Charlie all alone, resulting in several yelling fits by Charlie and meltdowns by Raymond when he doesn’t want to fly because planes are dangerous, it’s raining outside so Raymond doesn’t want to drive in it, there’s a crash on the highway so that’s dangerous too, as well as Raymond simply being agitated that his entire routine has been thrown off and Charlie having zero empathy or understanding whatsoever. 
There’s a scene where the pair is getting breakfast, and Raymond wants his usual pancakes with syrup on the table before the pancakes arrive, and when Charlie isn’t being helpful or understanding at all, Raymond starts to get more agitated, and Charlie forcefully grabs him by the back of the neck and says “Don’t make a scene, stop acting like a fucking *r-slur*”. After which, Raymond pulls out one of his various notebooks, and writes in his ‘serious injury list’, “Charlie Babbitt squeezed and pulled and hurt my neck in 1988”. This is just one of many examples of Charlie verbally berating Raymond, and one of the few where Charlie physically hurt him. However, as the movie plays on, Charlie getting angry happens less and less, especially when the whole meaning behind “Rain Man” is revealed, but he still calls him stupid and gets visibly frustrated. I did think Charlie might be changing, but the second Charlie brought Raymond to Vegas in order to use his “savant” status of being good with numbers to win money at the casino, I had lost all hope. You develop a soft spot for this person and realize that they’re more than their disability (such a cliche, I know) and yet you STILL use them for your benefit?? Raymond ended up making one bad call, and Charlie got mad at him again, but he still won Charlie $85,000. Charlie did end up apologizing after that last outburst, but it was the only time he had done so the entire movie. I full-heartedly believe that if Raymond had never won him that money, Charlie would not have liked him nearly as much. Anyway, the rest of the movie, Charlie was relatively kind to him. He even taught him how to dance while they were still in Vegas, which was a nice scene. He definitely was less frustrated and more understanding, but I just feel like he treated him so awfully in the entire film that he couldn’t make it up in just a couple of scenes. There was
one VERY sweet moment at the end, though, that I think is supposed to mirror the scene where Charlie grabs Raymond forcefully. In this scene, Charlie is attempting to comfort Raymond about his future at Walbrook and reassure him that Charlie cares for him and such, and Raymond ends up leaning foreword, touching their heads together in an intimate, sweet moment. I think this kind of mirrors the other scene because they are very physically close, but this time, Raymond initiated it and it was not related to violence or frustration in any way, just pure love. That was one of the few moments where I felt as if Charlie may have redeemed himself. So, the film then ends in the next scene, with Charlie promising to visit Raymond. As character development goes, there was not enough of it in this film for me to deem Charlie as “a changed man”. For all I know or would expect, he might never see Raymond again. Maybe I’m just being negative or hating for no reason, but I think Charlie needs to do a lot more FOR Raymond to be redeemed in my eyes. Moving on, we’ll talk about Raymond. Raymond was the most lovable guy out there. He just wanted to watch his People’s Court and Jeopardy, eat his foods at the same time, and occasionally talk about his obsession with baseball. He was portrayed as being very innocent and simple-minded, but also a high-functioning autistic person. He never, ever got upset with how Charlie was treating him, he mostly got upset just because of his own issues, but never really took it out on anyone but himself. For an example, Raymond gets highly stressed very fast, especially in a new environment, and when he gets stressed, his coping mechanism is to recite the entirety of the comedy sketch “Who’s on First”. While this may get annoying after the 50th repetition, it’s a good way for Raymond to cope. There’s a lot less to say about Raymond, simply because he was less problematic and a very enjoyable character. I loved his quirks and his bits of comedy, even if he didn’t intend it to be funny. He’s just a good, misunderstood individual. Finally, we have Susanna. She is extremely interesting! I liked her a lot from the beginning because while she stayed with Charlie, she didn’t necessarily tolerate his shit. She called him out for leaving her in the car, for not listening to her, and especially for treating Raymond poorly. When she had left Charlie at the hotel, I was all like “YOU GO GIRL!”. And when she refused to answer his calls, I gave my full support. But maybe with 30ish minutes left in the movie, she decides to come back and reunite with them in Vegas because she missed Charlie…girl…what is there to miss?? He treated you like garbage. But whatever, she’s nice to Raymond and that’s all I cared about. Eventually, Charlie gets separated from them in Vegas because security kinda caught them cheating, and Raymond and Susanna are left alone, waiting for Raymond’s “date” to show up, which was a sex-worker named Iris who got frustrated with Charlie trying to take her 
away from Raymond, and then weirded out when Raymond didn’t really converse with her well, and she left but Raymond thought they were still going on a date. Very odd. Anyway, Susanna leaves with Raymond, and they have an even weirder moment in the elevator. Susanna emergency stopped the elevator, asked Raymond to show her how Charlie taught him how to dance for this “date”, and then proceeded to KISS HIM. SHE KISSED RAYMOND. He did not really understand what it meant, and his only thoughts on it was that it was “wet”, but WHY DID SHE KISS HIM?? The only reasonable explanation I could come up with was that Susanna felt bad for him because his “date stood him up” and she wanted to give him an experience that he might not ever get the chance to do again?? I have no idea, but I found that scene to be SO odd. I very much disliked it! I think Susanna is very nice, but it felt weird to me. In the end, I hope she realizes her worth and leaves Charlie, but still visits Raymond once in a while. Those were the three main characters, but there were several side characters that don’t really need to be mentioned. All of these characters were realistic in the way that I could see them all being real people, but I will say that I don’t have a lot of experience with autism, and a common criticism of the film is that autism is not portrayed accurately. So, they may have fed into autistic stereotypes a little much, but I think it’s important to remember that this was made during a time where autism was not nearly as known as it is today and that type of stuff. Overall, I enjoyed the films characters, at least as much as I could with the main one being a little horrific!
3. The acting in this movie was phenomenal, but, just to poke at him a little bit, I wouldn’t even say Tom Cruise was acting. He’s a big 
asshole in real life, so I believe this role probably wasn’t very hard for him to embody. To me, his vibes just scream that he’s said many slurs in his lifetime. Besides him, I loved everyone else. Dustin Hoffman is a great actor, I LOVED him in Death of a Salesman, so I have bias’s that go both ways. I think he did the best with what he was given. Again, some criticisms of the film are that it doesn’t portray autism accurately, and, while I don’t have a lot of experience with that, I think it’s fair to say that Dustin Hoffman was great at portraying that specific character as he was written, if that makes sense. It may not be entirely accurate, but it was a meaningful performance nonetheless. Hoffman actually also won Best Actor for this role, and it was probably deserved. Everyone else was also great. I was fully engrossed in the film from an acting perspective.
4. I think this movie hasn’t really aged well, but I’m sure many people thought it was acceptable then, and still think it’s acceptable now. As mentioned previously, there are many uses of the r-slur in this film, I think all of which are done by Charlie, and there is just generally a lot of negative language about autistic people. There’s also some pretty casual misogyny that made me shake my head a bit, but honestly, this movie is not any worse than what you would see on an average Reddit forum. It’s not horrifically offensive, but like, a lot of the message of the movie can be boiled down to “autistic people are people too” and it’s just like…yeah? Obviously? Charlie didn’t have to call Raymond stupid every other scene and then care about him by the end in order to get that same message across if that’s what they were really going for. It’s relatively impactful either way. As for the Bechdel test, this movie quite obviously does NOT pass as it literally only has two named female characters, both of which are treated horrifically by Charlie and never interact.
5. Finally, did I like this movie. And, as I predicted it, I’d give it a solid “eh”. It was fine. Not revolutionary. I don’t feel like I wasted my time by watching it, if that’s a good indicator. Personally, I think that if this is what won “Best Picture” in 1989, they must’ve had some pretty weak movies that year. I have nothing else to say, really. Just “eh”.
Well, my time to talk has come to an end once again. Please let me know if you’ve seen this movie, and what are your thoughts on it? One of my main questions would be; do you think Charlie actually developed as a character?
Thanks for reading!
~
Amelia