Rain Man (1988)

My main man Charlie Babbitt.

It is something of a great cinematic achievement that Rain Man became the great film it clearly is because the story surrounding it is interestingly Hollywood in itself.

Four directors, six screenwriters, two cinematographers, eight producers, writers strikes, crew change, and a studio fighting for its life.

All of the above are common knowledge but it doesn't hurt to remember these facts when viewing the award wining triumph of a movie that stands the test of time today. The film is so simple in structure it really needed something special to pull it out of the prospective banality of being "just another road movie about finding oneself", Rain Man achieves something special by tackling its subjects with very sensitive hands and splicing a believable h...

I am not going to pretend I have much substantive to say about this movie that will make readers gasp or slap their forwards and realize, yes, that is why I should love this film! But as this is one of my wife and my favorite movies ever, I thought I would share why.

When this movie came out, we saw immediately the similarities between Raymond (Rain Man) and our daughter. No, she is not just like him. In addition to her autistic, obsessive behavior, she is deaf and developmentally delayed so that even though she knows sign language, she only answers questions with it and never uses complete sentences.

But like Raymond, she has always exhibited weird special gifts. She solves math problems on her fingers that even sign language interpreters don't understand, she remembers exact date...

"Charlie" (Tom Cruise) works his luxury car import business quite literally wheeling and dealing when he is told that his estranged father has died. Driving to meet the solicitor he's informed that he is to receive some perfectly grown roses, but that the $3m estate is to be left elsewhere? Where? Well he discovers that he has a brother "Raymond" (Dustin Hoffman) when he visits him at in institution that cares for autistic people. Resentful and completely unaware and uncaring of his actions, "Charlie" decides to take his new-found sibling on a trip back to LA. Not afraid of throwing the odd tantrum, "Raymond" refuses to fly with anyone but Qantas so they have to drive and it's on the road that the story develops into one that, to be honest, we could probably predict quite easily. Now there...