One of my very favorite movies, not only because it was so well done, but because for over 25 years I have worked with and cared about people with disabilities, including autism; and like Charlie am a sibling of a person with a developmental disability. Other family members and friends of people with disabilities love this movie too, because we knew it the first movie about disabled people that was so true!
It was NOT about a Helen Keller type (once unlocked, brilliant and OK)or about cute, sweet kids with Down's Syndrome (they are cute, but most disabled people are adults, and aren't always cute, sweet or easy). Charlie came to love Raymond, learned to communicate with him through humor, and seemed to become a better person because of Raymond; but Charlie was also stressed and baffled by Raymond much of the time. At times he reached out to Raymond with affection, but was rejected. This is the dynamic we live with daily.
Someone who simply feels pity, who cannot accept the disabled person for who he/she is, who has no sense of humor, or thinks he is a Miracle Worker who will 'cure' disabled people, will get nowhere, and will not add to the disabled person's life.
Charlie and Raymond were the only family that each other had. They had not only a moral but a legal right to continue their relationship and to live close to each other, if not together. Even in the 1980's, as Raymond's closest relative, all Charlie had to do was petition the court to become Raymond's "conservator", which likely would have been granted. He was wrong to take Raymond, but the institution in Ohio had no legal hold on Raymond, regardless of the father's will. Charlie's kidnapping would have been outweighed by the fact that a)he was family (like parental rights), it is always better to keep families intact unless serious abuse exists and b) Raymond had the right to live in the "least restrictive setting" which in no way is a large institution such as the one where he had been living, across the country from his only family.
If Charlie could not handle alone having Ramond live with him, then Charlie had the right to choose, with Raymond, and the advice of social service agencies, an appropriate small group home for Raymond close by where the two could maintain the brotherly relationship they had resumed. Perhaps in the 30's or 50's, the state, assuming that it and psychiatric experts knew what was best, had the right to tear family members apart and institutionalize people, but this has not been so for a very long time, and the ending was the only thing about the film that rang untrue. Finally got this off my chest since 1988!
It was NOT about a Helen Keller type (once unlocked, brilliant and OK)or about cute, sweet kids with Down's Syndrome (they are cute, but most disabled people are adults, and aren't always cute, sweet or easy). Charlie came to love Raymond, learned to communicate with him through humor, and seemed to become a better person because of Raymond; but Charlie was also stressed and baffled by Raymond much of the time. At times he reached out to Raymond with affection, but was rejected. This is the dynamic we live with daily.
Someone who simply feels pity, who cannot accept the disabled person for who he/she is, who has no sense of humor, or thinks he is a Miracle Worker who will 'cure' disabled people, will get nowhere, and will not add to the disabled person's life.
Charlie and Raymond were the only family that each other had. They had not only a moral but a legal right to continue their relationship and to live close to each other, if not together. Even in the 1980's, as Raymond's closest relative, all Charlie had to do was petition the court to become Raymond's "conservator", which likely would have been granted. He was wrong to take Raymond, but the institution in Ohio had no legal hold on Raymond, regardless of the father's will. Charlie's kidnapping would have been outweighed by the fact that a)he was family (like parental rights), it is always better to keep families intact unless serious abuse exists and b) Raymond had the right to live in the "least restrictive setting" which in no way is a large institution such as the one where he had been living, across the country from his only family.
If Charlie could not handle alone having Ramond live with him, then Charlie had the right to choose, with Raymond, and the advice of social service agencies, an appropriate small group home for Raymond close by where the two could maintain the brotherly relationship they had resumed. Perhaps in the 30's or 50's, the state, assuming that it and psychiatric experts knew what was best, had the right to tear family members apart and institutionalize people, but this has not been so for a very long time, and the ending was the only thing about the film that rang untrue. Finally got this off my chest since 1988!