Reaction Paper - Rainman

REACTION PAPER ON THE FILM RAIN MAN

(1988)

SUMMARY:

Well written, smartly directed, and sensitively performed, RAIN MAN depicts the one-sided relationship between two brothers. A self-centered Los Angeles hustler Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) and the older Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), a mentally challenged resident of a home for the mentally disabled.

Charlie never knew of his existence, until the day he returns home from Los Angeles to attend his father's funeral. He is enraged by what has happened and by his father keeping Raymond's existence from him for his entire life. What angers him even more is when he learned about the last will of his father. In the will, his father left his fortune to his other brother, (an individual that doesn’t even understand what money is for) while only he got nothing but his father’s prized rose bushes and the vintage ’49 Buick car.

As Charlie experiences a combination of confusion and anger, he takes his brother out of the hospital. Charlie has run into financial difficulties and is about to lose his exotic car dealership. Now wants to force Dr. Bruner to hand over what he feels is rightfully his. It's a nonsensical plan, but Charlie needs the money desperately. He's been on his own long enough to know how to work people and situations. At first this greatly alarms Charlie and he sees his brother as an obstacle in inheriting his father’s fortune so he then decides to take his brother on a great adventure. He kidnaps Raymond from his residential home but then finds that Raymond will only fly Qantas. The two begin a long road trip that will lead them to an understanding and journey of discovery

REACTION:

As they make their way across the country, the emotionally unreachable Raymond becomes the catalyst for Charlie's transformation from a self-absorbed character incapable of intimacy into a caring and sympathetic adult. RAIN MAN rises above the banality of its concept--another buddy movie stuck in a road trip picture--to become a genuinely moving and intelligent look at what it means to be human. Hoffman delivers a magnificent stunt of a performance, eventually earning him the Best Actor Award for his stellar performance; Cruise brings depth and conviction to the emotional development of his character while the other casts like Golino (Cruise’s girlfriend) and Roberts (who played Vern) added extra spark.

In this film, it is very much clear that Raymond has Asperger’s Syndrome. Raymond exhibited autistic-like behaviors and he has difficulty with his social and communication skills. But despite some setbacks he has an above average intelligence and a very minor language delay. For instance he sometimes used repetitive words and slurred his speech, but overall his language is fine. He just used words in a different way. Whenever he converse with the people around him, particularly with his younger brother Charlie, it is evident that his speech patterns may be unusual; sometimes it lacks inflection or have a rhythmic nature and can be formal. There are instances wherein