Rain Man is about a Los Angeles sports-car importer and feckless younger brother, Charlie (Tom Cruise), whose father leaves his $3 million to Charlie’s older brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic savant of whose very existence, in a Cincinnati institution, Charlie was unaware. Enraged, Charlie abducts Ray in the hope of somehow acquiring his inheritance, and drives him to L.A. in the white ’49 Buick convertible that is just about all his father left him. There ensues a typical comic road movie cum mismatched-buddy movie (are those still two genres or have they become irrevocably fused?) as the brothers drive across Western America and each other nuts. Well, Ray already is, more or less, but he is also a mathematical and mnemonic genius who helps Charlie make a killing at blackjack in Vegas. In return, Charlie’s Italian girlfriend teaches Ray to danqe and kiss. Since that is as far as it goes, it may not be a fair exchange for the $80,000 Ray wins for Charlie.
By the time the brothers arrive in L.A., Charlie has become seriously fond of Ray—an affection not untinged by considerations of Ray’s financial usefulness. By now, Charlie has become accustomed to Ray’s weird ways, and Ray—to some extent—to Charlie’s normally heedless ones. But the two can’t go on together. As Ray is taken back to Cincy, he is close to feeling affection for Charlie, who, genuinely moved, promises to come visit soon. In the old days, when such efforts could be assessed as one-, two-, or three-handkerchief movies, this would have been a one-hankie one; in the era of Kleenex, it is harder to classify.
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