Sandra Magdaleno

Introduction to Special Education 203

Movie Critique (Rain Man)

Wed. October 05, 2022

 The movie starts off with tha main character, Charlie. Charlie is a car dealer and has just

heard his distant father has died. He finds his way back home to Cincinnati where he discovers

his father has practically left him out of the will with nothing but a car and some roses. Charlie

becomes more enraged when his fathers additional 3 million dollars is distributed into a trust

fund to someone else. Desperate and driven by money he goes looking for this someone. It leads

him to a mental institution where we meet our next beloved character, Raymond. Raymond is

Charlie's autistic older brother who was unheard of all of Charlie's life. Charlie, as selfish as he

is, had the idea of kidnapping his brother to practically threaten the institute for half the money

for the return of Raymond. Since that didn't work he planned on taking Raymond to Los

Angeles, where Charlie lives, to gain custody over Raymond to then have ownership of the 3

million dollars.

Raymond from the beginning shows prevalent signs of autism. He is very much routine

oriented whether it be through sentences, phrases or words to tasks and rituals of everyday life.

He was very receptive to any changes. Following the routine was like clock work; it was set in

stone and it led to his other characteristic of obsessiveness. Raymond is shown to be very calm

and doesn't cause much distractions, but the second something isn’t going his way he loses it.

Most of the time it's in a childlike way by screaming, sort of like throwing a tantrum. One of the

first instances of this was when Charlie attempted to get Raymond on a plane. Raymond started

yelling, causing a scene. Raymond refused to go on a plane, and Charlie had to accommodate.

Throughout the movie Charlie struggled with Raymonds specific demands just like the

plane issue. Another example would be Raymonds need to watch TV at a specific time everyday.

In another instance Charlie became aggravated with Raymond at a diner when Raymond insisted

the maple syrup came before the pancakes. Communication is another issue that Charlie had with
Raymond. Raymond doesn’t socialize like others do, so connecting with Raymond was

impossible. Charlie was the one that was the most frustrated with Raymond in the beginning of

the movie. Mostly due to the lack of understanding of autism, and would refer to Raymond as

dumb.

Having autism also affected Raymond's personal life. In one scene when he was at the

doctors, he was said to be “high functioning”. The way he was projected in the movie says

otherwise. Clearly Raymond is depicted as someone who needs to be looked after. As said before

he isn’t good with socializing with others. When a woman approached him to flirt he did not

register what was happening. The women found him weird and walked away at the end.

Raymond has good recall skill, which Charlie was very impressed by. The issue was Raymond

couldn't conceptualize certain ideas like money. Although he was great with numbers, the

concept and value of money was nonexistent. When Raymond sounded the fire alarm on

accident in Charlie's home. Raymond was frightened, confused, and panicked by the loud noise.

If it was a real situation with actual fire, and Charlie was not around, it would’ve ended terribly.

Most people who didn’t know Raymond before meeting him would see him different and

think him stupid. Most people probably think this way in the real world about others with autism.

For so long autism has been stigmatized as someone who lacks in learning, slow, unintelligent,

etc. Autism doesnt equal dumb and its actually the opposite. It can be seen as a different way of

learning than how others typically do. Autism is also a spectrum and it can vary person to

person. In order to make autism more aware and make people not stereotype the disability is to

firstly educate others. Bringing more awareness of autism creating workshops and support

groups. Not only can we learn more about the disability but we can be more considerate of those

with autism and create spaces that can easily be accommodated to them to help them out as well.
 I really enjoyed the movie. For starters it didn’t fabricate or romanticize the disability. It

showed the frustrations and the conflicts of having autism and affecting those around them. The

best part was obviously when Charlie came around and finally loved his brother for who he was.

Charlie had selfish intentions at the beginning of the movie and used Raymonds disability as an

advantage to get to Ryamonds money. He slowly starts to understand autism and becomes

frustrated when others don't, like how he once used to be. The movie didn't in any way insult the

idea of autism and did not depict it in a wrongful way. Overall Rain man is a great movie and a

must watch for those who haven't.

 Works Cited

. Levinson, Barry, director. Rain Man. United Artists, 1988.