Rating: 2/5
When I was a kid and I got scared, the Rain Man would come sing to me.
Across the smoggy LA horizon, a crane carries a red Lamborghini, making it look almost like it’s flying. The crane sets it down next to three other Lamborghinis. Charlie Babbitt looks over his purchase before driving off in his Ferrari 400i to the warehouse where he runs Babbitt Collectables. Charlie has a buyer for the Lambos, but the EPA is holding his cars at the port because they don’t pass emission tests. In the meantime, Charlie has employees, Lenny and Susanna, lying at both ends of the deal to compensate for the holdup.
Satisfied, Charlie drives off with Susanna to Palm Springs. On the road, Lenny calls to inform Charlie that his estranged father, Sanford, has died. The funeral is tomorrow in Cincinnati, where they’ll also settle the estate. Despite their rocky relationship, Susanna goes with Charlie to the funeral.
In the estate settlement, Charlie receives his father’s 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible, which was the cause of their estrangement (it doesn’t matter how), and his father’s rosebushes. The remaining $3 million estate goes into a trust fund for an unnamed beneficiary. Not content to let it lie, Charlie digs and finds his father directed the money to Wallbrook, a local mental institution. Through labored exchange, we get the reveal at the 20-minute mark: the money is going to a brother Charlie knew nothing about named Raymond, a man with high-functioning autism and savant syndrome.
So, Charlie steals Raymond from the facility for a road trip back to California in the Roadmaster. Will Charlie milk the $3 million out of Raymond? Will Susanna finally leave Charlie? Will Raymond get anything out of this experience?
What a slack, cheap movie. The script is stuffed to the 9s with hammy dialogue that explains how every character feels and how you should feel about it. Every scene seems 2-3 minutes longer than it needs to be.
See, Charlie is SUPPOSED to learn how to express his emotions. That’s what Susanna complains about, how Charlie never talks about where he is or how he feels. So, in the light of someone with a neurodevelopmental condition that prevents him from expressing his emotions in a socially understood way, Charlie’s frustrations with Raymond become Charlie’s frustration with himself.
It was also before Hollywood trusted people with autism to act, uh, autistic, so we have Dustin Hoffman’s dedicated but sorely misguided performance. Sure, they decorate Wallbrook with people with autism, who can walk silently by and add verisimilitude.
Thanks to this movie, continuing down the line to Sheldons and Good Doctors, people continue to conflate autism and savant syndrome. Yes, folks with savant syndrome sometimes have savant syndrome, but the condition can arise from other neurodevelopmental conditions or brain injuries.
I like the cars. I like the neon lights. I like watching Tom Cruise throw a fit. I like some of the filmmaking decisions.
I don’t like this movie.