Rain Man

Rain Man

1988

Director: Barry Levinson

Writer: Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass

133 Minutes

Charlie Babbit (Tom Cruise) finds out he has a brother. A very special brother. A brother he never remembered, but took everything their father never offered to Charlie: acceptance. And a large sum of money.

So, Charlie steals his brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) until he gets his hand on the money, so he can save his failing car dealership. But, Charlie has more to learn past saving his business. He has to learn how to love and accept others.

And learning to love means accepting someone else’s smelly farts and that’s exactly what this impromptu scene is about.

Raymond doesn’t want to fly, citing dates to plane crashes for all the major airlines, thus Charlie has to accept driving across the country with his brother. Acceptance is the key here.

These two make stops, conflict between beds under windows, K-mart boxers, and Judge Wapner arise, until Charlie eventually discovers Raymond’s unique knowledge of bankrupting Las Vegas Casinos.

In the scene above, Charlie and Raymond have stopped to rest. Charlie is forced to keep Raymond close, too close, so he doesn’t get into trouble. Charlie makes a phone call about his business, yet Raymond doesn’t care either way. Charlie discusses this money there and that money here, but Raymond doesn’t know the wise. And then it slips.

“Did you fart?” – Charlie

The funny part of this scene is while setting up the shot, Dustin Hoffman actually farted with Tom Cruise in the phone booth. He stayed in character saying, “ah, oh…” and Tom Cruise’s reaction was the same.

“Did you fart?” - Tom

Barry Levinson listening in, loved it. It was magic in a bottle. It’s exactly what this scene needed, but also the movie needed. Because accepting someone means accepting all of them, even at their comical worst.

Charlie did learn to accept his brother Raymond and more so, accept himself past his deceased father notion of parenting. And we got to share these moments with him.

Thank you, Charlie.