One of my all time favourites this movie, Rain Man is moving, funny, sad, uplifting and ultimately a little dowh beat, but contains two terrific central performances from two Hollywood legends and terrific direction from one of mainstream Hollywood's finest filmmakers, who makes all the right choices, which of course means not making the obvious ones. What surprises one straight away about Rain Man is how funny the film can be, without any of the bad taste theatrics of, say, a Farrelly brothers movie, who have frequently used various forms of mental illness or autism as the butt of many of their jokes in their movies. Here we have a film about autism that is very funny, but knows that it is dealing with a serious condition, thus making the jokes not so much about the condition, but about one man having to deal with it, in this case Charlie Babbit, played superbly by Tom Cruise in what is arguably one of his best performances, up there with Jerry Maguire and Magnolia. This isn't a film that pokes fun at Raymond's condition and thus makes him into a superb character, one that we care about, even though in many ways he is incapable of showing emotion back to the person who comes to care for him the most, even though we desperately want him to.
Enough cannot be said of Dustin Hoffman. One of Hollywood's finest, here he is at his utmost best, sparring off Cruise superbly in some of the finest scenes in a mainstream film from 80's Hollywood (the K-Mart sequence is a particular highlight), he is engaging, even though he is always reserved and never makes eye contact with anyone, he is also funny, yet sad, but never over-eggs one or the other aspect in his performance.
What surprises one about Rain Man is how restrained it is for a Hollywood film. The biggest aspect of the film to symbolize this is its music score from Hans Zimmer, composing his first American film. Instead of relying on strings and pianos like many other composers would do, Zimmer relies more on percussion and an almost African-Carribbean style main theme that sums up the film perfectly. The music never overshadows the film, it is more restrained and cleverer than that and almost sums up what you can say about the film. Nothing ever goes over the top or into theatrics, everything is kept as realistic as possible, from the performances, to the way it is filmed by Levinson, right through to the writing and the film's ending which doesn't go for the conventional manner of trying to have the audience reaching for the tissues, but neither does it go for some emotional catharsis that you would expect either. Of course there is one little moment ("You're my main man"), but it works anyway and strangely keeps in line with what the film is doing.
Clever, brave and superbly done, Rain Man is one film that I demand that everyone should see.
Enough cannot be said of Dustin Hoffman. One of Hollywood's finest, here he is at his utmost best, sparring off Cruise superbly in some of the finest scenes in a mainstream film from 80's Hollywood (the K-Mart sequence is a particular highlight), he is engaging, even though he is always reserved and never makes eye contact with anyone, he is also funny, yet sad, but never over-eggs one or the other aspect in his performance.
What surprises one about Rain Man is how restrained it is for a Hollywood film. The biggest aspect of the film to symbolize this is its music score from Hans Zimmer, composing his first American film. Instead of relying on strings and pianos like many other composers would do, Zimmer relies more on percussion and an almost African-Carribbean style main theme that sums up the film perfectly. The music never overshadows the film, it is more restrained and cleverer than that and almost sums up what you can say about the film. Nothing ever goes over the top or into theatrics, everything is kept as realistic as possible, from the performances, to the way it is filmed by Levinson, right through to the writing and the film's ending which doesn't go for the conventional manner of trying to have the audience reaching for the tissues, but neither does it go for some emotional catharsis that you would expect either. Of course there is one little moment ("You're my main man"), but it works anyway and strangely keeps in line with what the film is doing.
Clever, brave and superbly done, Rain Man is one film that I demand that everyone should see.