Analysis Of The Movie Rainman By Barry Levinson

Rainman, 1988, directed by Barry Levinson is a drama, that revolves around Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) and his autistic brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman). Charlie is unaware of his brothers existence until the death of their father, when he goes to collect his inheritance from his father’s lawyer he learns that Raymond was left all three million dollars of his father’s money. Unsatisfied with only receiving a car and rose bush from his father, Charlie takes Raymond with him to Los Angeles, as ransom for his father’s inheritance. Rainman was a revolutionary movie that introduced much of the general public to autism, and savant syndrome, revealing what it is like to have autism and problems that those who have it face. One of Rainman’s main†¦show more content†¦Raymond refuses, as he has a phobia of flying and won’t fly on a airline that had ever crashed, the only airline to of never done so being Qantas, which only operates in Australia. When Charlie begins to physically move Raymond towards the plane he starts yelling and screaming, as a defence and last resort, showing his inept linguistic and social skills. An autistic savant is someone that suffers from autism but also has an incredible skill or capability that the average person does not possess, or as Darold A. Treffert, MD of the University of Wisconsin Medical School, describes it, â€Å"... is a rare, but extraordinary, condition in which persons with serious mental disabilities, including autistic disorder, have some island of genius which stands in marked, incongruous contrast to overall handicap. Although the majority of savants are autistic, one-in-ten of people who have autism have savant syndrome, it is still possible to not be autistic and have savant syndrome with less than 1% of the non-autistic population being a savant, although those people often have other mental problems e.g. mental retardation. Male savants also outnumber female savants 6-to-1. Traditionally savants were known as ‘idiot savants’, which is a french term first introduced by Dr. J. Langdon Down in 1887 that means ‘unlearned skillà ¢â‚¬â„¢. There are many different types of savants, that all have different abilities and skills, the most