Rain Man (1988)
Directed by Barry Levinson
When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.
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5 films that influenced Rain Man
What critics say influenced Rain Man
The other inspiration was Bill Sackter, a close personal friend of Morrows that was the subject of an earlier television movie called Bill, (a role that won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Mickey Rooney in 1981).
There’s a great Jonathan Demme movie waiting to bust out of Rain Man, as it shares more than a few obvious parallels to that director’s road-movie masterwork Something Wild.
Yet props should be given to Hoffman for insisting on the relatively downbeat ending, which saves Rain Man from plunging into total offensiveness and marks its historical place as a dull Best Picture winner to put alongside Cavalcade and Gentleman’s Agreement.
"Road movies," the simpler term, usually happen when characters want a change in their lives, or if they're searching for someone who's on the opposite side of the country that they want to impress, or have sex with, as was the case with "The Sure Thing," starring John Cusack.
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The cleverly directed family drama by Barry Levinson ("Diner"/"Wag The Dog"/"Liberty Heights") won an Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (Ronald Bass & Barry Morrow) and Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman).
The direct approach of the director, Barry Levinson ("Good Morning, Vietnam," "The Natural," "Tin Men," "Diner"), and the superlative performances of his stars, Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, help the material here rise far above melodrama, making "Rain Man" a knockout film.
Las Vegas aside, the film is an odd, dry odyssey, kept deliberately unsentimental by director Levinson ("Diner," "Tin Men") by writers Ronald Bass ("Gardens of Stone") and Barry Morrow (TV's "Bill: On His Own") and, in particular, by Hoffman's spare, poetic performance.
Levinson made two great comedies, "Diner" and "Tin Men," before phoning in the abysmal "Young Sherlock Holmes" and garnering undeserved glory -- courtesy of Robert Redford and Robin Williams -- for "The Natural" and "Good Morning, Vietnam."