(warning: this review contains spoilers)
Back in early 1989 when ‘Rain Man’ won the Best Picture Oscar I remember watching a news report from an entertainment reporter who rather bluntly said that he didn’t think ‘Rain Man’ was that good a film. It stuck in my memory because it was widely presumed (or at least I perceived to be the case) that if the Best Picture Oscar winner wasn’t the best film of its year, then it was pretty close to it.
And it seems that perspective of ‘Rain Man’ being somewhat undeserving of all the awards and public adulation it received has been verified by the passage of time. It’s a hard thing to judge, by my reckoning while the film hasn’t been completely forgotten, the film’s reputation has dwindled somewhat over the past two decades.
I’d never actually got around to seeing it until recently and was quite interested to see whether it holds up after this period. How does the film stand up two decades on? Pretty well overall.
The plotline is a fairly simple one: Cruise plays Charlie Babbitt, a self-absorbed 1980s yuppie go-getter (sort of reminded me of a less successful and less likable version of Jerry Maguire) who learns that his recently deceased father has left him none of his substantial wealth, instead giving it to an autistic older brother named Raymond living at a mental institution he never knew existed. In a petulant response, Charlie takes Raymond from the institution determined to get his ‘fair share’ of his father’s wealth.
One of the strengths of the film is that it doesn’t try to wrench maximum emotion out of a scenes that have the potential for such manipulation. In fact, considering the film’s plotline it’s a remarkably restrained and somber piece. Not everybody took to this style – one review I read was particularly disappointed with the lack of emotion in the final scene when Raymond and Charlie have to split up; But for mine, the lack of effort to tug at the heart-strings and rely on more subtle methods was most effective here.
Another notable feature is the way the film is styled – there are many long shots in the film, only in the montages is there much editing occurring and the use of music is limited. This would’ve made it somewhat unusual in 1988, but much more so now where all the opposite features appear to be the rage in modern Hollywood filmmaking.
As well, while it’s Dustin Hoffman’s performance that gained the most fame out of the film (and to an extent has become a pop culture reference), Tom Cruise’s performance is the base around which the success of the film occurs – it’s easy to forget with all the celeb nonsense Cruise has been a part of in recent years how much of a good actor he can be.
If Cruise didn’t deliver the film would’ve sunk, but he gives an impressively nuanced characterisation. When there was the potential to make Charlie a one-note blowhard who finds a heart of gold at the end, Cruise instead provides a characterisation that sees the conflict between Charlie’s selfishness and growing affection and compassion for his brother mesh as one. This is particularly well demonstrated in a concluding scene where it’s decided whether Raymond will return to the institution or under Charlie’s care. It’s soon clear that Charlie has no chance but he neverthless argues passionately that he and Raymond have formed a genuine bond during the previous week, but he argues in such a restless and abrasive manner (in sync with his persona) that he’s only doing damage to his lost cause. For mine this is the best scene in the film, thanks in part to Cruise’s excellent acting.
Having said that, the film isn’t without its flaws. The relationship between Charlie and his girlfriend Susanna feels vague and unsatisfying. A specific weakness is Susanna’s disgust at Charlie’s initial treatment of Raymond, leading her to walk out on him for a period of time; as Charlie is hardly acting out of character from what we see before he meets Raymond it’s hard to believe that Susanna would be surprised by his immature behaviour.
And in the second half of the film, it does at times fall back onto the cliches of the road movie and a classic sign of cinematic laziness, a musical montage just for the sake of it.
And now that I’ve had a chance to think back on the film a couple of weeks after seeing it, it’s not a film that really stays in the memory as great films tend to do. It just doesn’t have the texture and brillance that the great films have; therefore it sits only in the very good pile.
So was the entertainment reporter harsh on ‘Rain Man’ all those years ago? He probably was, as it’s held up well as a very fine film. But I’d be surprised if there weren’t at least a few other films that were more worthy of scooping the pool at the Oscars that year.
