Rain Man (Movie Review by Bob Racine

                         (2 hrs & 11 min, color, 1988)

An entire generation has been born and grown to adulthood since this prize possession of a motion picture put in its first appearance.  Anyone under thirty years of age has in all likelihood not seen it or at most has fleeting memories of it.  I was quite touched by the picture when it was first put into release in theaters, but when I recently viewed it again on a Netflix DVD, I was more than touched; I was profoundly enthralled.  And I found it easier to identify with the characters for a very personal reason, which I will now try to explain.

Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) is not the sort of individual with whom I would be likely to fraternize, if he were real and if he were in my vicinity.  He is something of a rogue yuppie living in Los Angeles, a fast-talking huckster of a salesman who thinks of himself as a smooth operator when in fact he is a bit rough, coarse and heavy-handed and ever so impulsive a manipulator.  His lowbrow impudence is matched by his raw nerve.  Right off the bat he and I have nothing in common – except for one very crucial thing: We are both, as far as we have been told, only children, the only offspring of our parents.  (Yes, now you know something about me!)  But how would it feel to discover by chance, as Charlie does, that somewhere I have a sibling from whom I have been forcibly separated?  It would be culture shock and future shock all in one payload. 

Upon the death of his estranged millionaire father (whom we never see), Charlie is informed that he has inherited nothing but an old Buick convertible and some flower bushes, while the three million dollars from the estate has been awarded to Raymond Babbitt, the autistic brother he never knew he had, a permanent resident in a mental institution in Cincinnati, Ohio that has been appointed keeper of the trust.  Charlie is so furious that by a clever ruse he succeeds in virtually kidnapping Raymond from the premises with the intent of holding him for ransom in the amount of half the estate, the half to which he feels he is entitled.  Of course Raymond does not comprehend that he is being kidnapped; he is just moving about with another caretaker.  This drastic action is spurred on by huge financial troubles with which Charlie is faced.  He is a car dealer and has imported four foreign cars which he incorrectly thought he could sell in a hurry at a reduced price but finds the EPA breathing down his neck and threatening confiscation if he does not meet their legal requirements within hours.                                         

The scheme, however, proves to be easier planned than executed, mostly because Raymond is deathly afraid of flying and Charlie can only get him back to California by driving across country in the old Buick convertible, thereby eating into the limited time he has before the EPA foreclosure.  Further complicating things is the fact that Raymond is a savant, in possession of a super computer brain, about which the self-possessed and self-serving Charlie is highly skeptical – at first.  What follows is probably the most unusual road picture sequence ever devised. 

The only emotion to which Raymond appears to be subject is extreme, irrational fear when he perceives he is faced with bodily harm.  Otherwise he evidences no gut experience of the things he learns by rote or the digested facts and quotes he repeats ad infinitum.  He is also fanatical about doing every little thing during the day at a specified time – eating, watching certain TV programs, going to bed, etc.  His life is precisely laid out in his mind and any deviation from the routine threatens to bring on a crisis, which Charlie is forced to deal with.  A reluctant party to the snatch is Charlie’s girlfriend Susanna (Valeria Golino), who is also employed by him in his fly-by-night car dealership and goes along for the ride until she sees that Charlie is not interested in Raymond as kin but as someone to exploit, and she cuts out. 

Many who saw “Rain Man” in the 1980s and 1990s mistakenly concluded that all autistic people are savants, with special powers of recall, which of course is not true.  Very few are.  The characters in the story are fictitious, but it needs to be noted that Barry Morrow, co-author of the original screenplay with Ronald Bass, based Raymond upon a true life individual he had met who was so gifted.  We can say, therefore, with some justification that Hoffman’s portrayal has a basis in fact.

Hoffman’s portrayal!  I could write pages and pages about it.  And so could he.  To create Raymond he had to abandon almost all conventional approaches to acting.  He had to walk a certain way quite unlike his usual style of ambulation.  He had to learn to play every scene without any eye contact, with either other characters in the picture or the audience.  But most difficult of all he had to perfect a manner of speech that scarcely ever changes pitch and has to sound like a mechanism triggered by external influences and do so without seeming to imitate a robotic voice from a sci-fi flick.  What comes out is something somewhere between a mutter and a drone with a nasal twang.  He brings it off and sustains it beautifully. 

The film’s dramatic power derives from a great use of contrast.  Charlie’s raging belligerence and fits of frustration play off of Raymond’s unexcitable and remote demeanor to pack quite a wallop.  This contrast by itself, however, could never have sufficed without Morrow’s and Bass’s brilliant script.  We are treated to some of the most incisive, amusing dialogue our ears will ever hear.   

Hoffman won the Best Actor Oscar, which he richly deserved, but I think Cruise was at least entitled to the nomination he did not get.  As far as I can perceive this could very well be his best performance on screen.  The role of Charlie could very easily have pushed a lesser actor over the top and made him overbearing and corny, but Cruise gets the balance just right.  He controls his own magnetism and force and finds quite a lot of nuance in his interpretation.  We have the veteran director Barry Levinson (of “Bugsy,” “Wag the Dog,” “Diner,” and many more) to thank for bringing it all together and giving it pace and push and clarity from scene to scene.  He and the Morrow/Bass writing team also won Oscars, as did the film for Best Picture. 

Charlie’s inward journey, as he slowly warms to the idea of caring for his brother and valuing him more than the money, is a joyride beyond words.  “Why didn’t somebody tell me I had a brother?”  At first he asks this in anger, but finally he does it in wonder and with at least the hint of gratitude.  In spite of the barriers a strange but wonderful bonding takes place.  I highly recommend it for everyone over the age of fifteen.

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net

Flight (Movie Review)

                             (2 hrs & 18 min, color, 2012)

There is something not only sad about the depiction of substance abuse on screen but in some cases something rather embarrassing about it as well.  I cringe when I see an illicit needle sink into an arm or when I have to watch some sodden soul swill down the booze to obvious excess, ad nauseam.  Would I want to witness such a scene in real life?  But I am willing to bear up under the picture of degradation I am watching, if enough sympathy (not a lot but enough) for the person or persons portrayed is generated and, more importantly, sufficient context is created to render their story palatable and morally affirmative.  As a movie buff and a dramatics enthusiast I try hard to find a basis for sympathy toward any misguided, self-destructive or disreputable character in any kind of fiction, even one with criminal tendencies, else why should I give the story my earnest attention!  The portrayal of decadence just for its own sake, however, or just for the sake of realism requires us to be captive voyeurs. 

This is not quite the case in “Flight,” a movie that concerns the downfall of a commercial airline pilot given over privately to abuse and addiction.  But it could have done a better job in the motivation department despite a solid portrayal by Denzel Washington.   The movie ends where I would have preferred it begin.  A close family member who has been estranged from him over the years asks flat out, “Who are you?”  To this he replies, “That’s a good question.”  At that the closing credits begin to scroll.  The picture ends on a note it could have sounded much earlier.  Who is this man and what circumstances have shaped him?  The sources of this flyer’s dependence upon hard drugs and drink remain rather vague. 

Something happens in the film’s first half hour that compensates somewhat but not entirely for this missing link.  He takes the passenger aircraft into the Florida skies quite boldly and manages to catch a nap with his copilot assuming command of the craft, only to be awakened when a technical failure not of his making sends the plane into a steep dive.  Against all the odds of probability he manages to bring the ship to earth in an open field with only six of the 102 people on board losing their lives.  He saves the other 96 by a most unusual feat, which I will not try to depict in words.  See the picture for yourself, though I advise that anyone with an incurable fear of flying to stay home.  This midair miracle is the movie’s most breathtaking sequence.  He is dubbed at once a hero by the media, as we would expect.  Consequently we experience great disappointment and a sinking feeling when a subsequent investigation brings his habit to light and he tumbles from the height to which he has been elevated.  A kind of sympathy derives from our living through the crisis, a sympathy based not on acquaintance with his early life but on the shameful and tragic loss he undergoes after a long career at ace piloting.  This man has been of great value and service to millions over his lifetime.  How crushing it feels to see his reputation go up in smoke!

Are alcoholics born or are they made?  Are there biological traits that make it almost inevitable that the individual will be attracted to the deadly liquid and become dependent on it or does the dependency come about through chance exposure to social and environmental influences?  I am inclined to believe the latter, but note that I am only talking about an inclination to believe it, not a one hundred percent certainty.  I will have to defer to medical science on the question, and I have never read of any consensus of opinion among these experts one way or the other.  John Gatins, the author of the original screenplay, leaves ample room for us to suppose that this pilot’s enslavement to the narcotic of booze is inherited, since his addiction predates, and leads causatively to, the collapse of his marriage and his alienation from his teen son and since no domestic factors during his childhood are ever noted or mentioned.  At least dramatically speaking the pilot’s dependency on drink is a given, not derivative.  He just is the way he is.  Of course, in all fairness, whatever an addiction’s origin, it is true that beyond a certain point it becomes self-perpetuating. 

Surely by this point in my review it should be clear to every reader that “Flight” is not in the final analysis a sky born adventure.  I suspect the “flight” of the title is more a reference to the pilot’s attempt to flee from and hide from and deny the fact of his condition.  And there is a lot of denying on his part right up until the movie’s last few tense moments.  The airline portrayed is of course fictitious, and let us hope that its internal quality control system is not typical of actual ones.  You get the impression that the entire operation is a giant accident that has been waiting to happen.  This accrues from the minutiae of the investigation that follows the crash, and as far as I can tell the technical details with regard to a commercial airliner’s construction are accurate and most informative for us lay folk.  I certainly hail the film’s educational value.

I also hail the work of Kelly Riley, playing a young woman addict in the process of getting “clean,” who succumbs momentarily to Washington’s charms before taking a hard second look at him.  It is a small role, but she soaks the screen with heart and verve.  John Goodman gives a strong salty portrayal of a supplier “friend.”  Also worth a nod are Don Cheadle as a lawyer for the airline and Bruce Greenwood as the head of the pilots’ union, both of whom have much invested in keeping the clamps on the ugly truth about their star aviator.  Robert Zemeckis (for whom “Forrest Gump” remains a shining moment) does the adequate directing. 

In a nutshell “Flight” is far from being a great production; there have been better films on the subject of substance abuse.  But it is informative and largely affective in the dramatics department, despite a mammoth implausibility at a crucial point, which I will not reveal.  To do so would ruin a significant element of suspense.  Washington’s star power gives the film a lot of heft it may not have had otherwise.  Though it is not his very best work, his fans, among whom I count myself, will not want to miss it.

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net

Beasts of the Southern Wild (Movie Review)

                   (1 hr & 33 min, color, 2012)

The mixture of reality and fantasy is nothing new in modern cinema.  The fun sometimes is trying to discern where one leaves off and the other begins.  Sometimes the surreal portions of a film are quite obvious, due to a change in the color palette or in the rate of perceived motion or in a sudden shift in the photographic style of a scene or sequence, maybe a change of lighting.  In other instances the fantasy sneaks up on the viewer.  You think you are in authentic time, when something happens to explode that illusion, something shocking or incredible or off the charts of possibility.  No signal warning or foreshadowing has prepared you for it.  In most cases movie fantasy brings with it at the very least a sense of foreboding and unsettlement.  In “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” a recent release that has won an Oscar nomination for Best Picture in the upcoming competition, the fantastic is part of the landscape.  It does not intervene; it is itself the shape of the characters’  world and their expectations.

The main character is Hushpuppy, a six-year-old dark skinned child who resides in a backwater community somewhere in the Mississippi Delta country, portrayed by a scrappy little child actress named Quvenzhane Wallis (and do not ask me to pronounce that first name).  She lives in a ramshackle house that is barely more than a hut, and in her narration of her story she talks of things you and I would only imagine, as if they were native to the only existence she has ever known, chiefly an ancient, almost extinct animal called the aurochs.  Her life is almost under water, the soggy marshland constantly puttering at her bare feet and right up to her door, so that it only takes a massive flood to put her and her people under it.  The area in which she dwells has been named The Bathtub by its inhabitants.  She and her neighbors live with the constant expectation that the ice caps will melt, that the aurochs will be turned loose from their primeval graves to roam the earth and threaten human life and that the Delta dwellers will be called upon to use techniques of survival that are unheard of.  They all interpret the flood that comes upon them as the apocalyptic arrival of that Arctic meltdown.  For all we are told, it might be.  No one is driven mad; no one evidences any surprise. 

This child is really tuned in to her watery world.  She even listens to heartbeats, not just of humans but those of animals, and living up to its title the film has plenty of them to fill the scenery – a dog, birds, chickens, pigs, fish in plentiful abundance, alligators, goats, sheep, a shark (albeit a dead one), even an owl and a caterpillar.  But of course the heartbeat of the screenplay is the relationship between her and her fatherWink (Dwight Henry).  The language they speak to each other is something you are likely never to have heard or witnessed before, however much of a movie buff you are. 

Hushpuppy must face down many things – the flood itself, the father’s life threatening illness, the absence of her mother who mysteriously disappeared at the time of Hushpuppy’s birth, the bleak landscape left in the storm’s wake, the death of some of her neighbors, and ultimately the aurochs itself.  At what would be a tender age for any ordinary child she must demonstrate a mettle that prepares her for being on her own in an uncertain migratory future.  Yes, at only six years old!     

Her narration is not the droppings of some unseen savant forced into a child’s mouth.  She needs no one to speak for her.  She uses her own patois and succeeds in sounding just as poetic and profound as an adult orator.  Her basic belief she sums up quite well: “The whole universe depends upon everything fitting together just right.  If one piece busts, even the smallest piece, the entire universe will get busted.”  But “if you can fix the broken piece, everything can go right back.”  And in a moment of lonely, desperate decision-making she declares, “When you’re small, you gotta fix what you can.”  Upon her entrance into a flood shelter after a forced evacuation, she remarks that it is nothing like the prison she expected.  It “looks like a fish tank with no water.”  You get the feeling that her “universe” is her own little neck of the woods, the only one she knows, and her words derive from what her father has drilled into her.  His creeping cancer, however, is for her the bad fit that turns everything upside down as well as his pathetically fanatical refusal to leave The Bathtub or accept medical help, after his home is destroyed.  Slowly Hushpuppy comes to realize that this man she has always regarded as her protector is really something of a prison keeper for her.  Understandably she begins to think that her long gone mother is somewhere over the horizon and she goes in search of her. 

How despite his stormy stubbornness Wink tries to prepare Hushpuppy for his departure is phenomenal.  Theirs is a world within the world within the universe, one none of us is likely ever to have visited.  The folks in this small community may be isolated and unable to think outside their little box, but they are not pagan savages; real communal, humane love and affection show up in several touching scenes.   There are powerful dramatic moments all through the film under the shrewd direction of Benh Zeitlin, scripted by him and Lucy Aliber, author of the play “Juicy and Delicious” on which the screenplay is based.  I cannot begin to imagine how challenging it must have been for art direction and cinematography.  There is nothing neat about any set on which things are staged.  I doubt if any film ever made has ever required more water for its realization.  Afterward you may feel at least psychologically waterlogged.  You may need to look around you to make sure terra firma is still firmly under your feet.  However mythic and fabled it may be, metaphorically it is the age old crisis of one generation handing things off to another, and of a child beginning to outgrow the world view of the parent.  If you can focus on that very human struggle beneath the fantasy, you have got the strange, uncanny thing well in hand.   

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net