A very rich theme indeed, with echoes elsewhere in cinema: in Rain Man, for example, Charlie Babbitt discovers that his lost childhood ‘imaginary friend’ and source of reassurance & emotional security the ‘Rain man’ is actually his autistic brother Raymond. The reversal Cruise’s character undergoes is perhaps the opposite of Kane: he kind of ‘looses the world to gain his own soul’. At the film’s end his re-bonding with his ‘imperfect’ autistic brother is the opposite of the image of the ‘perfect’ Lamborghini’s that he’s taking delivery of during the film’s opening sequence.

Another way of looking at the theme is the simplicity and sophistication of youth or even a poorer lifestyle, in contrast to the complications brought about by adulthood and wealth. Kane grew up in a quaint family that lived in a veritable shack, so life could be simple, happy. But then he grew up, attained a fortune, and suddenly nothing was simple anymore. He felt empty and tried to fill his emptiness with things, when really all he wanted was Rosebud again–a symbol of the simplicity of youth.