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Two stars tacklean unusual tale of brotherly loveBy Jim EmersonThe Register£ jjjjj^JI e’s inherited S3 million, and heBHfl doesn’t understand the conceptm m of money ? It's poetic, isn’t it?” That’s the reaction of slick, selfish, callow LA sports car dealer Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) when he discovers; 1) that he has an older brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman); 2) that Raymond is autistic and has been living in a Cincinnati institution most of his life; and 3) that Raymond has been named the chief beneficiary in their .late father’s will.The line also spells out — too neatly and self-consciously — the tidy conceit of Barry Levinson’s “Rain Man,” a road movie that follows the pair’s journey from Cincinnati to Los Angeles, as angry, humorless Charlie is forced to deal with his barely communicative savant brother and thus learns to become a more sensitive, caring and responsible human being It’s all spread right out there for you, clear as the lines on the highway road map : character development through interstate automobile travel in deceased dad’s symbolic ’49 Buick Roadmaster convertible — the car the old man, from, whom Charlie cut himself off years ago, would never let his youngest son drive.We’re aware of the movie’s itinerary from the start and are confident it eventually will arrive at both, its literal, and figurative destinations (i.e., LA and emotional maturity- for Charlie). En route, all that keeps this naive, romantic and formulaic concept from becoming unbearably precious are' the courageous, if rather strident, performances by Hoffman and Cruise.We first see Charlie as a reflection in the hood of a car. And, you know, he’s just like that: all appearances — smooth and polished with a tough, hard Turtle Wax shell And about that deep, too. Even as his business collapses, Charlie maintains his cool, gleaming finish, except for an occasional outburst of temper during which he lashes out at. his employees or his girlfriend, Susanna (Valeria Gohno), or whoever happens to be around.Raymond is sealed inside a shell of another kind. He’s a child of ritual whose life is organized around the familiar routines of weekday TV schedules and revolving institutional meal schedules: Judge Wapner and “People’s Court” at such-and-such a time each day; “Jeopardy!” at another. Plain pancakes with maple syrup (which must be on the table before the food arrives) every morning; eight fish sticks and green gelatin for dinner Fridays.Raymond’s consciousness is an elaborate construction of such intricate details. They’re all etched immutably in his impeccable memory, and he babbles them incessantly to himself, generating a kind of self-protective static to block out the overwhelming and threatening sensations of the unfamiliar world at large.He latches onto certain comforting buzzwords and phrases — “definitely,” “of course,” “uh-oh” — and plugs them into the head or tail of virtually every sentence. His constipated uh-oh” expression, for exREVIEWample, always sounds the same whether it’s in response to spilled apple juice or an imminent threat to his life. When he’s nervous he compulsively repeats Abbott, and Costello's “Who’s on First?” verbatim inhis high, nasal, affectless voice.Raymond’s mind is forever spinningover these familiar patterns, as if 'Constantly monitoring them to be sure that they haven’t changed. Ami so Raymond almost seems more mechanical than human, like a turntable playing a record with a stuck groove, or a short circuit always on the verge of overheating;.But, like a computer, he can perform certain complex, numerical functions with digital speed It’s no problem for Raymond to calculate, in seconds, the number of toothpicks spilled on a diner Boor. “246. Definitely 246,” he says — even though no one has asked him to count them. lie’s perfectly happy to perform tasks as long as 'they’re clear1, simple and. concise. Like reading and memorizing the phone book,The movies have had a tendency to romanticize (and thus condescend to) the mentally ill or retarded, and there are occasional hints of this in “Ram Man, too. If this film had been made m the 1960s or ’70s, chances are the brothers’ trek would have transformed Raymond as well as Charlie, causing him suddenly to exhibit heretofore unsuspected signs of normal” human interaction.But for the most part, Hoffman * much-111mm “D'ltn •TVW YVMK HHfl wlafi.Stars: Dustin Hoffman. Tom Cruise, Valeria Qofcno. Jerry Moten. Barry Levinson •ahtnd the scenes: Directed by Barry Levtnson Screenplay by Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow'i aa lt;ii iiie h 1 M ■m an Hhi i ■ i-v* i .1?^ etat I. lt;es»unemaiograpny Dy joon 000*6Maytnp Starts today to 'Orange County. Running 2 hours 20 minutes Rated: R — sex, languagepublicized mania for accuracy and authenticity .seems to have 'been, well-applied, here. Hoffman worked cm developing the screenplay and preparing for the role for more than a year (and through several directors ) and reportedly insisted on finding specific symptoms for Raymond, rather than leave him suffering from some unspecified mental malady.Hoffman spent considerable time with several autistic savants, and the movie also lists six medical * ‘consul tants on au tistic behavior,” so you don’t need to dread that brotherly love will become a sappy TV-movie miracle cure for Raymond. On the other hand, the script does have a kind of smooth, enervated quality to it, as though it had been pared and polished perhaps too many times.Hoffman has never been a self-effacing performer. Definitely not. Course not. Uh-oh. But even though this part is .something of a stunt role (like Ratso Rizzo in “Midnight Cowboy” or the aging anti hero of “Little Big Man”) — the challenge being that Raymond cannot make eye contact or carry on a straightforward 'Conversation with others — Hoffman carries it off with restraint and sharp comic timing.This is Cruise’s third film in a row in which he plays a jerk supposedly reborn over the course of the picture (“The 'Color of Money” and “Cocktail” preceded “Rain Man), and although the attempt is admi rable, the strain is showing Cruise’s Char Lie is so cruel, senseless and, above all, 'boring that his redemption is unconvincing, no matter what the screenplay says.
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Fri, Dec 16, 1988
Page 50
Full Page
Clipped by
Rotten T.
USA 02 Aug 2022
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