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In our expansive country, road trips are a time-honored tradition. There’s just something about traveling across the country, seeing cities and farmland and natural wonders through our car windows. Maybe that’s why we love our road trip movies so much: because they remind us of our own journeys—whether they turned out to be the comedic variety or the dramatic, life-changing variety, like the one in director Barry Levinson’s Oscar-winning classic, Rain Man.
Tom Cruise is Charlie Babbitt, a wheeling, dealing car broker who lives in Los Angeles. When he hears that his estranged father has died, he travels back to Cincinnati for the funeral—only to discover that he’s inherited next to nothing. He gets his father’s beloved 1949 Buick Roadmaster and some prize rose bushes, while the rest of the estate—all three million dollars of it—has been placed in a trust for an unnamed beneficiary.
Charlie’s search for his father’s money leads him to a big discovery: his brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic savant who’s been hidden away in a home for the disabled since Charlie was very young. To Charlie, his new-found older brother is little more than a million-dollar payday—so he decides to take Ray back to California with him. But he soon finds himself struggling to adapt to Ray’s way of life.
Rain Man is an unforgettable road trip drama because it’s so more than just a road trip drama. Sure, it’s a movie about two guys traveling across the country (in a classic car, no less). And they experience all of the highs and lows that two people on a road trip usually do: the funny moments, the bonding, the frustration, and those moments that are so bad that you just want to give up. It’s real, honest stuff—the kind that reminds you of your own cross-country journeys.
But Rain Man is so much more than just another Harold and Kumar adventure. It’s a movie about relationships. About family. About discovering what’s really important. It’s more than a journey across the country; it’s an emotional journey.
The emotion, of course, is all Cruise’s. Charlie is the one who experiences the highs and lows of the journey. He’s the one who yells and screams and occasionally throws a fit. That makes him a difficult character to like; he’s selfish and greedy, and he kidnaps a disabled man for his own self-serving purposes. Still, his outbursts give the film its energy.
Meanwhile, Hoffman’s Ray is the film’s stabilizer. He doesn’t experience emotion. He’s a creature of habit, whose life has to be perfectly structured, and the only times when he strays from his flat, even-keeled demeanor are the times when his structure and stability are taken away—when he can’t watch The People’s Court or Jeopardy, when he isn’t in bed on time, when he’s afraid that he’ll get his pancakes before the syrup is on the table. Playing such an emotionally flat character poses even more of a challenge than playing a moody, dramatic one—and Hoffman still manages to stir viewers’ emotions with his perfectly flat performance. There’s absolutely no doubt that he deserved his Oscar—and his performance alone makes the film a classic.
Rain Man isn’t just another road trip movie. It isn’t always easy to watch, but it’s a moving and challenging film—an emotional journey that’s well worth taking (again).
Blu-ray Review:
The Blu-ray release of Rain Man offers even more insight into the film and its characters. Extras include The Journey of Rain Man, a making-of feature that discusses more about the film and the filmmaking process. The feature includes interviews with key crew members (including director Barry Levinson and composer Hans Zimmer), though, for some reason, Valeria Golino (who plays Charlie’s girlfriend, Susanna) is the only cast member who appears in the feature. Still, the feature offers more insight into the characters and the film’s challenges—along with exploring the evolution of some of the film’s details—so fans of the film will want to check it out.
Other extras include a deleted scene, the original trailer, and three (yes…three) audio commentaries. Why the filmmakers felt that they needed separate commentary tracks for director Barry Levinson and writers Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass, I couldn’t tell you—but each offers an interesting (and unique) perspective on the film and the process.
The most fascinating feature on the disc, however, is Lifting the Fog: A Look at the Mysteries of Autism, which talks more about autism—and how it relates to Dustin Hoffman’s role in the film. It also introduces viewers to some of the men who inspired his Oscar-winning performance. If you have 20 minutes to spare after you finish watching the film, I recommend checking it out.
