In Rain Man, the Academy bestowed its highest award for 1988 to a film that would become one of the most popular and most iconic films, not only of the decade, but in the history of American cinema. That statement might sound hyperbolic, but I do not believe that it is. Raymond Babbitt is an oft-quoted character, and many of his signature lines from Rain Man have become a part of the vernacular of popular culture. Another thing that Rain Man did was simultaneously bring awareness to autism while also expanding some of the condition’s misconceptions. Raymond Babbitt was based on a real person who was an autistic savant, however the vast majority of people on the autism spectrum are not savants, which some erroneously believed was the case on the heels of this film’s release. Fortunately, however, this film at the very least made people more aware of the condition and helped set the stage for its proper diagnosis, and today there is much more awareness of autism and much more compassion for people who live with it.

As for the film itself, it’s a marvelous one. It’s a story about personal growth and it’s about redemption and forgiveness. It’s about a young, cocky and arrogant yuppie living in Los Angeles named Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) who imports Lamborghini’s, but is short on cash at the moment and is having a hard time paying back a loan and is in danger of losing the cars before he can complete their sale and becoming indebted to his clients. In the midst of all of this chaos he finds out that his father has passed away in Cincinnati. Charlie tells his girlfriend Susanna (Valeria Golino) the story about how he stole his father’s car, a Buick Roadmaster convertible, one night when he was 16 and his father let him spend 2 nights in jail over it, and that was the impetus for Charlie to leave the house and he hadn’t seen or spoken to his father since. At the reading of the will Charlie finds out that he’s receiving that very car as well as his father’s rose bushes, but the bulk of the estate, $3,000,000 worth, will be going to an unnamed beneficiary.

Charlie finds out that the trustee of the estate, Dr. Bruner, is chief psychiatrist at a local institution. Charlie meets him there, but Bruner is less than forthcoming with information. Charlie leaves the meeting frustrated and finds Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) sitting in his car, and Raymond knows everything about it. Raymond knows Charlie’s father and knows the exact date when his mother died. Dr. Bruner witnesses the exchange and admits to Charlie that Raymond is his brother and the beneficiary of the $3,000,000. He also tells him that Raymond is an autistic savant, and that means that he has no grasp on certain things that most people take for granted, and he cannot function on his own in society. However, he has certain abilities like an incredible memory and ability with numbers that give him an element of genius as well. Determined to find a way to get his hands on that money that he so desperately needs, Charlie takes Raymond from the institution to bring him to Los Angeles and ransoming Raymond to Dr. Bruner for his half of the estate.

At that point they go on the road because Raymond refuses to fly, citing at least one plane crash from every airline except Qantus. Charlie discovers that dealing with Raymond is like dealing with a small child who can’t express himself. These issues are incredibly hard for Charlie to deal with because he is so self-centered and emotionally bankrupt that he lacks the empathy to really give Raymond the care that he needs. Dr. Bruner has told Charlie that Raymond relies on stability and he gets very agitated when things go out of the norm. It’s easy to tell when Raymond is agitated because he recites the old Abbot and Costello routine Who’s On First. Charlie gets introduced to Raymond’s neuroses when they’re in a coffee shop and Raymond is worried because today is pancake-day and there’s no maple syrup on the table because maple syrup is always on the table before the pancakes get there. Frustrated, Charlie violently grabs Raymond by the back of the neck to quiet him, but it only agitates Raymond further.

And that is an example of beautiful storytelling from a screenwriting and character development perspective. It’s always important to give your characters depth because depth in character is what makes them feel like real people. In other words, you don’t what your hero to be 100% good, because then he’ll be uninteresting and the audience won’t be able to relate to him. You need to give your hero some sort of flaw in order to make him relatable. Likewise, you don’t want your villain to be 100% bad because then he just turns into a monster. You want the villain to be the hero of his own story so that he too feels like a real person with relatable motivations. What Director Barry Levinson and Screenwriters Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow did was they created a protagonist in Charlie who was impatient, petulant and arrogant and lived a life that required that he fly by the seat of his pants. He actually starts out the film more unlikable than likable. They then paired him up with an antagonist in Raymond who must have everything in an orderly way and must be surrounded by patient people who understand his needs. So they took a person with no patience and put him in charge of a person who requires an extraordinary amount of patience and that created a very dramatic scenario that forced Charlie to grow as a person and examine what type of person he had become.

If you are an aspiring screenwriter and trying to build a dynamic and dramatic relationship between your main character and another character in the story, then Rain Man is a script you should read and it’s a film that you should reference. It is the job of the screenwriter to make life as difficult as possible on the main character, and Bass and Morrow did just that with Charlie Babbitt. Before Charlie even meets Raymond, he’s in a world of trouble with his clients and with his debtors and even with his girlfriend. Then after Charlie meets Raymond and the adventure begins, they had Raymond act as an obstacle at almost every turn, so the very person that Charlie thinks he needs to solve his problem is also the person that’s preventing him from doing just that. If you can create a scenario by which that is going on in your own screenplay, then you are well on your way to being a successful writer.

I would also like to mention something about Tom Cruise, who played Charlie Babbitt, the main character and the hero of this journey. No one can play a petulant, arrogant little shit like Tom Cruise and he was at his best in this film. I remember when this film came out and there was concern on the part of some over casting Tom Cruise opposite Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman was already not only an established star, but a growing legend in Hollywood. He won Best Actor for Rain Man and had previously own Best Actor for Kramer Vs. Kramer. Not only that, but he had also nominated for Best Actor four other times at that point, and he had starred in some of the great films of the previous 20 years like The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy and All the President’s Men. I’ll discuss Hoffman a little later as well, but many felt that Cruise was fighting way above his weight class in being cast opposite Hoffman. To the surprise of many, Cruise held his own. To that point he was known primarily for Risky Business and top Gun, but this role showed that he could be a serious actor, and it opened doors for him to have much more serious roles later in his career. This was not the first nor the last time that Cruise would be underrated as an actor, and this film was truly a defining moment for Cruise and his career.

Dustin Hoffman would join the likes of Clark Gable, Talia Shire and Diane Keaton as an actor to star in three Best Picture winners, having previously starred in the aforementioned Midnight Cowboy (1969), and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). An interesting note is that the previous members of this club all were in movies that won within the same decade, and Hoffman’s winners were all a decade apart from each other. Already a legend, Rain Man cemented Dustin Hoffman as one of the great actors of the 20^th Century.

One other thing that I find extraordinary about Rain Man is that it’s a road movie that I like. Personally I’m not a fan of road movies, and Rain Man, which primarily is a road movie, is probably the only road movie that I can think of off the top of my head that I really like a lot. For me what makes Rain Man work where other road movies don’t is that it’s not episodic. In too many road movies the hero goes from one point in the story to the next with each stage representing a different challenge that needs to be overcome. Too often in road movies these stages and challenges are self-contained events that have little or nothing to do with any other points in the story. You could easily replace any of these events with something else and it would have no affect at all on anything else that happens in the story or the film. That’s what makes road movies episodic, and I am generally not a fan of their disjointed nature.

Rain Man is different, however, in that while there are somewhat disparate pieces to their journey, they all do tie together as the journey moves along, and the lessons that Charlie learns with each stage are applied to events in the film’s third act. What lessens the episodic nature of the film is that events and situations that are planted in Act II are paid off in Act III. That planting and payoff not only ties the story together, but it also helps show growth in the characters and growth in the relationships. For example, early on their journey, when they’re at the coffee shop Raymond needs toothpicks to be able to eat. The Waitress (Bonnie Hunt) accidentally spills them, and Raymond is almost instantly able to tell exactly how many fell on the floor by looking at the pile. This combined with another incident that show Raymond’s ability with numbers leads Charlie to take Raymond to Las Vegas where Raymond is able to count cards at the Blackjack table and they’re able to win the money that Charlie needs to pay his debtors. This incident will also be used against Charlie when he’s trying to keep Raymond from having to go back to the institution.

Also in the original diner scene, Raymond makes a big deal about having syrup on the table. After they’ve arrived in Los Angeles, they’re at another diner and Charlie makes a point to show Raymond that they syrup is there, and an emotional connection is made between the two of them. That leads me to another really strong component to this film, and that is the character growth of Charlie Babbitt. He starts out the film as a selfish prick, and in the climax of the movie he sees that, as much as he now wants Raymond in his life, Raymond needs to go back to the institution. Charlie has to act in a manner that is selfless in order to do what’s right for Raymond.

There is one more bit of planting and payoff that helps to connect two otherwise distinct scenes in the film. It’s very subtly done, but has an incredible emotional impact. In the first coffee shop scene when Raymond starts to get upset and Charlie grabs him by the back of the neck, he leans his head in towards Raymond in a very aggressive way and angrily tells him to shut up. At the end of the film when Raymond has to leave, they’re sitting on opposite sides from before, Charlie gently pats Raymond’s back and they gently and affectionately put their heads together. The juxtaposition of these shots shows how far they’ve come on their journey and it helps to tie the whole film together.

Rain Man is a simple story but a complex film with a wide mix of emotions. It’s film that was meticulously, almost lovingly well-crafted. It’s one of the best films of the decade and is truly a film that aspiring screenwriters and filmmakers should study.

Did the Academy get it right?

Yes they did. Rain Man is one of the top five films of the decade and certainly the best film of 1988, although there was some stiff competition. The Accidental Tourist is a critically acclaimed and dramatic film about putting your life back together and sometimes that happens in unexpected ways. It’s a heavy film, but ends on an up note. That said, it’s not quite on the same level as Rain Man. Dangerous Liaisons is one of the better known films of that year, and it was also critically acclaimed and has become something of an iconic film in its own right. Aside from the production design, art direction and costume design, I find it to be an overrated film, as none of the characters are likable and the story itself is boring and uninspired. Mississippi Burning is the opposite of that. It’s an intense film and based on the true story about the investigation of the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964. Gene Hackman and Willem Defoe are awesome in this film and the whole movie is intense and dramatic. To me this is an underrated film, but I still wouldn’t have voted for it in 1988 because I don’t think it’s as complete a film as Rain Man. Finally Working Girl was the other nominee about a secretary who poses as her boss after she gets injured in a skiing accident. It’s a wonderful film and surely its feel-good nature garnered it some Academy support, but it’s primarily a fairy tale and not on the same level as Rain Man. The thing about Rain Man to me is that it’s a complete film. It has a well-crafted dramatic story, it has top-notch performances from all of the actors, and it’s a compelling film that people could relate to and feel good about what happens to the characters without it being contrived. It’s a wonderful film and clearly the best film of 1988.