Rain Man is a critically acclaimed film. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, of which it won four including Best Picture. It also earned two Golden Globes, and over twenty other movie awards.

Despite its renown, my understanding of the film was sorely mistaken before watching it. For a long time I thought that Rain Man was a superhero movie about a man with the power to move water. When I watched it for the first time about a year ago I learned I could not have been more sorely mistaken.

Rain Man stars Tom Cruise as Charlie Babbitt, an egocentric Lamborghini dealer. When his father passed away, Babbitt returns home to find that almost the entirety of his three million dollar estate is being given to someone else. After locating where the money is being routed, a local mental institution, he meets somebody that he can hardly believe exists: his older brother, Raymond Babbitt (played by Dustin Hoffman). 

Charlie was raised believing that he was an only child. Naturally learning that he had a secret sibling was surprising, but his shock was entirely outweighed by his anger. 

Raymond was on the autism spectrum. He had difficulty expressing emotion outside of fear and panic and his life revolved around strict adherence to routines. Raymond also had ‘savant syndrome,’ which meant that despite his mental disability he had a remarkable ability to recall things he had seen and perform incredibly fast mental calculations [savant syndrome can come in a number of forms]. 

The fact that his father entrusted almost his entire fortune to his autistic brother did not sit well with Charlie. He perceived the estate as being squandered on Raymond. In order to remedy the situation, Charlie decides to take his brother away from the mental institution and hold him hostage in exchange for half of the inheritance. When this doesn’t work he sets his sights on becoming Raymond’s legal guardian. During this process, they set out upon a road trip back to Charlie’s home in Los Angeles over which Charlie learns about and bonds with his older brother.

As you might’ve assumed, this is one of the few Box Office hits to feature an autistic character in such a major role. This being the case, Rain Man has made aspects of living with and as someone on the autism spectrum far more visible in the public eye (especially when you remember that this movie was released in 1988). Despite this, it is somewhat hard to watch the way that Charlie treats his brother towards the beginning of the film. Also, while it does show an aspect of the autism spectrum, savant syndrome is rare (occurring in about 1 in a million people and only 1 in 10 people with autism (although this is a generous estimate)). With this being one of the most prominently featured autistic characters in media, the myth that autistic people all had special abilities became a pervasive belief.

While I think that Tom Cruise and especially Dustin Hoffman deliver strong performances, I do not think that this movie is worth the praise it has received. Rain Man is pretty good, but the ending is absolutely miserable.