Rain Man--A Review

During my 2006 visit to the Autism Research Institute in San Diego, about four months before director Bernard Rimland's death, I was struck by a "Rain Man" movie poster on the wall. On the poster was a "thank you" note from Dustin Hoffman to Rimland for Rimland's help in clarifying autism for him as he was studying for the role that eventually won him the academy award for Best Actor in 1988. Originally, writer Barry Morrow wanted to portray Hoffman (Raymond Babbit) as a mentally retarded man but later decided to shift focus and have Raymond be an "autistic savant." The actual person on whom Raymond Babbit was modeled was Kim Peek (born 1952), an autistic man with an incredible memory. Even 20 years ago the concept of autism wasn't on most people's "radar screen," and so the "savant" nature of Raymond added a note of exotic intrigue to this fairly rare (at the time) diagnosis.

By probing the subject of autism, director Barry Levinson was both giving us a gift and opening himself to criticism. The gift, of course, was the enlargement of our understanding. The criticism came from those who felt that the movie was too "kitschy" or unrealistically optimistic--that after a week or so of "bonding" between brothers, one autistic and one a money-driven yuppie (played effectively by Tom Cruise) , who hadn't seen each other for 20+ years, Raymond was able to shed some of the more severely autistic traits by responding emotionally to his brother. Indeed, it is perhaps because of this rather optimistically unreal aspect of the film that a line of dialogue is slipped into the film where Raymond himself denies that he is autistic. Here is the dialogue:

"Doctor: Raymond, do you know what autistic is?
Raymond: Yeah.
Doctor: You know that word?
Raymond: Yeah.
Doctor: Are you autistic?
Raymond: I don't think so. No. Definitely not."

The Story of Rain Man

The movie tells the story of 1980s fast-tracker Charlie Babbit, a somewhat shady auto importer, who runs into trouble because his shadily-imported luxury sports cars fail to meet EPA emissions test requirements on time, thus leading disgruntled buyers to back out of deals and demand their money back. While leaving LA for a weekend getaway with his girlfriend Susanna (Valeria Golino), he is notified of his father's death in Cincinnati. Charlie had been estranged from his father for about a decade, and so was not surprised that his dad only left him in his will a 1949 Buick Roadmaster Convertible and his prize-winning rose bushes. The balance of the $3,000,000 estate went to his autistic brother Raymond, who had been living for more than 20 years in Wallbrook, a facility for the mentally ill in Cincinnati. Raymond, as we learn, is a mathematical savant, but he doesn't understand the "concept" of money. Stung by the irony of inheriting 0 dollars when he "needs" the money and his brother inheriting money when he needs none of it, Charlie leaves Wallbrook with Raymond, intending to take him to LA to meet with his lawyers to make sure that the estate of his father would be distributed more equitably. Their memorable road trip across the country, culminating in a winning spree in Vegas, where Raymond wins big money because he knows instinctively how to "count cards," consumes most of the movie. There are elements of humor, tragedy, irony and, most of all, lots of good fun....

The "Lessons" of Rain Man

Rain Man was the first widely-distributed movie that brought to our awareness the triad of circumstances that form the basis of our current "definition" of autism: social withdrawal, repetitive movements, communication difficulties. Raymond shows all of these, with his repetitive invocation of the Abbott and Costello "Who's on First?" as the "signal" that he is retreating further into his "autistic aloneness." Though one can see the frustrating nature of this kind of withdrawal, from the perspective of "normal" people (Cruise shows this frustration very skillfully in several instances), the viewer is also spared from the more debilitating and draining aspects of it, since we can "escape" it just by waiting a few minutes or even seconds and the film takes us elsewhere. By showing Raymond as a person with savant skills, skills that ultimately will get his brother out of debt, the film downplays the exhausting nature of autism--especially for caregivers. But, then again, it is a Hollywood film (which won Best Picture), and no film could have won wide acclaim if it had given us autism in its "unvarnished" state.

But the tantrums are there, the withdrawal is present, the absolute rigidity of diet and routine is emphasized, though in a rather cute way. In fact, as I watched this film last night, 20 years after its first release, I was struck by how this film is really several years "ahead of its time" in its presentation of autism. It showed the complexity and, potentially, winsome nature of the condition well before most people knew it even existed. Thus, it was probably seen by most people 20 years ago as a sort of "exotic" movie, a sort of "Elephant Man with a Great Memory"-type of movie, rather than a presentation of a complex neurological condition that defies many of our best efforts to understand and treat it.

But the biggest lesson from the film is, I believe, that autism changes us. Autism changes the caregivers, the families of those who are touched by it, and really all who have the courage and patience to come closely enough to autistic individuals to learn from them. After talking with countless parents of autistic children, and meeting several of those children, I am struck by how much the parents say that their autistic children have unwittingly taught them--about patience, about goals in life, about being attentive to details, about listening to your body, about putting your own ego aside to "hear" another person. The presence of the autistic individual in our society is already changing the public school education system and soon will change the workplace. Raymond's ability to "change" his brother Charlie, and to unlock a "sensitive" side of him, is emblematic of this.

Conclusion

It has now been 20 years since Rain Man was released. We know far more about autism than we did in 1988; indeed, we now speak of an "autistic spectrum," which would certainly have included Raymond in it had the language for it existed in 1988. But the mystery of autism's origin and treatment is as enigmatic as ever. Hyped breakthroughs on the "cause" of autism are simply that--hype. Now is the serious time for study and experimentation with safe treatment options, but we are forever indebted to Barry Morrow's and Dustin Hoffman's vision more than 20 years ago to make this a movie about a man with autism. No one can now say that they haven't heard of it...

3824