My husband Alex is very committed to our daughters' movie education. A veteran movie and TV watcher, Alex loves sharing the excellent films of his childhood, youth and young adulthood with them whenever they are willing. At 13 and 14 they know more about World War II movies, sports themed movies and movies of the early 80s than most other kids their age. We are aware that time may be running out on getting them to watch movies with us as they have just started high school and are on the brink of almost always choosing time with friends over time with parents.
Right before the school year started this year we realized that the girls had never seen Rain Man. Given the fact that it's about a sibling relationship with a brother with autism, we skipped the usual back and forth about what people wanted to watch and just decided that we just had to watch this. Hope and Anna had never heard of this movie and had no idea what it was about.
Anna was hesitant at first saying, "It's kinda long, Dad. Can we watch something else?"
We insisted, saying, "Just trust us. You'll like it."
They did like it. We laughed. We cried. We called out unrealistic and disturbing things (like Tom Cruise's girlfriend kissing Raymond in the elevator). Mostly, we resonated. Here are the top four points from our post movie-watching conversation:
1) Dustin Hoffman deserved his Oscar. We thought he did a great job embodying a person with autism. When his character had meltdowns or dealt with stress through saying things over and over again it felt very real to the four of us who have not only lived with Josh for a long time but have also observed his peers.
2) Not all people with autism have savant syndrome. Why does it seem like everything that in everything that Hollywood pumps out people with autism also have savant syndrome? For example, we are fans of the Good Doctor, where the main character has both autism and savant syndrome as well. He can figure out all sorts of medical miracles with his superhuman capability of picturing the details of the human body in his mind. If Josh had savant syndrome, what kind would we want for him? Musical ? Mathematical? Is the ability to draw hairdryers and fans on the magnadoodle for hours at a time a superpower? We once had a music therapist who was sure that Josh was a musical savant with perfect pitch. About a $1000 in music therapy lessons later, we realized that he didn't.
3) People with autism are capable of expressing a wide range of positive human experiences and emotions. We loved how Raymond had moments of humor, affection and joy. We really resonated with the movie makers' choice to have Raymond be a well-rounded person who had the whole human gamut of emotions and not just an amalgam of stereotypes of what people think that people with autism are like. Our Josh is a fount of happiness, peace, confidence and curiosity. We appreciated that as Charlie got to know his brother as a multi-dimensional person so do we.
4) In this story, institutionalization was the answer. Yes, this film was made in 1988 but we were curious about how people's perspective about the need to house people with autism and other disabilities in institutions have changed. In this particular story, the best thing for Raymond ended up to be living in the institution which he had already lived in for decades. It didn't hurt that Charlie and Raymond's father had tons of money and could afford to house Charlie in a very nice institution. Also, Charlie was clearly not in a place to be able to suddenly and responsibly live with Raymond. Still, we wish that there were more examples in the media where families are shown to be living and flourishing with people with autism.
For those of you who know real people with autism, what felt real or interesting about this movie? What felt off or wrong? What do you think that this film says about people with autism?
