‘Rain Man’
Released thirty years ago this week, Barry Levinson’s Rain Man was the sensation of the winter of 1989, garnering four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Levinson), and, for Dustin Hoffman, Best Actor. Hoffman portrays Raymond Babbitt, an autistic savant who is reunited with his long lost brother, a brash-as-ever Tom Cruise as Charlie Babbitt, on the occasion of their father’s death. A subsequent journey by car out west subverts the road trip trope into a coming of age tale for both Charlie’s emotional and awareness, as well as Charlie and Raymond’s relationship as brothers.