The Graduate (1967)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Fresh and Exciting

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Benjamin Braddock returns home just after graduating college. I gather he is supposed to be playing someone the typical age for graduating college, early twenties, but is very clearly close to 30. Although he is described as a distinguished student, president of the debate club, and a talented athlete, his character's personality does not possess the elements of drive, confidence, dedication, or maturity accomplishing those things would typically take. At a party thrown in his honor by his wealthy parents and their friends to celebrate his accomplishments and welcome him home, he attempts to avoid the event by hiding in his bedroom. When his parents convince him to come downstairs, he demonstrates annoyed indifference to the guests congratulating him and offering him advice. He then ducks out again up to the comfort of his bedroom where Mrs. Robinson- a beautiful woman that in real life is clearly only a few years older than he is, but is unconvincingly playing someone about 20 years his senior- who asks him to drive her home. He does, amid the continued whining he has displayed throughout the entire party. Once he takes her home, she manipulates him into walking her in and staying with her until her husband arrives home, claiming to be 'afraid' of waiting in the house alone. She then continues to try to seduce him against his objections and clear discomfort. Eventually confronting him naked in a bedroom, ignoring the basic decency of 'no means no' and encouraging him to reach out to her any time for sex. He hears her husband arrive home and flees.Later though, he reconsiders her offer and decides to ignore her predatory and disrespectful behavior and calls her up to have an affair. They meet at a hotel and he continues to produce a whiny, awkward, monotone energy and she continues to produce a practical, abrupt, impatient attitude. He thinks better of sleeping with a married woman up in the hotel room, so she insults him into having sex with her by indicating he only doesn't want to have sex because he is inadequate as a man rather than any possible moral concerns. So he gives in and has sex with her, presumably to prove that he can.An overdone by today's standards, but perhaps original in the 60s, montage then plays indicating the passing of time as he continues his emotionally empty affair. As time goes on, his parents encourage him to date Elaine, Mrs. Robinson's daughter. When he tells Mrs. Robinson this, she gets angry and insists he promise her that he will not date her daughter, to which he agrees. All it takes for him to change his tune is another pushy conversation of encouragement from his parents and he's off to take her on a date. Mrs. Robinson is understandably upset, but he has a plan to ensure the date goes badly. He is incredibly rude to her and takes her to a strip club where he ogles the performer until Elaine starts crying and runs out. Clearly upset by his disrespectful behavior she asks if she has upset him. In order to comfort her, he kisses her which, inexplicably, she welcomes, even though her face is still wet from the tears caused by how badly he treated her. It appears to be more evidence that in this movie, giving clear verbal or non-verbal indications that you do not welcome romantic or sexual attention has no bearing on whether that attention is given. He decides to be nicer to her now, presumably it was a good enough kiss, and they finish the rest of their date. Tears forgotten, she's now sincerely interested. So much so, that it does not faze her in the least that he admits to having recently had an affair with a married woman.They make another date, but Mrs. Robinson confronts him and insists he must not date her daughter. He refuses, so she threatens that she will tell her daughter of their affair. He sprints to Elaine's bedroom and barges in despite her objections that she isn't dressed. Again, I guess objections are made to be ignored. He starts to tell her there is more to the affair and one sight of her mother's horrified face tells her the rest. She screams for him to get out and in this one instance in the movie he respects her decision and leaves.But not for long! Even though they have only had one date, he has decided he is in love with her. His illicit affair with her mother and her specific request that he leave her be are but petty obstacles to be completely ignored. He begins stalking her, literally watching her from the bushes. Once she leaves for college, he announces to his overjoyed parents that he and Elaine are getting married. Their joy diminishes quickly when he admits that she hasn't consented to marry him, nor has he even asked. But again, these are but petty details.He then follows her to college, rents out a room, and continues to stalk her. Eventually he confronts her on a bus ride to meet her date, and in keeping with the overarching theme, ignores her request that he leave, and instead tags along until she meets up with her date, Carl. Later she appears at his room, though it's unclear how she knows where he was staying since the movie doesn't indicate she was counter stalking him, and asks him to leave town. She doesn't want anything to do with him after he raped her mother. He objects that he didn't rape her mother and says that Mrs. Robinson came on to him. Elaine screams and plops down on the bed. He brings her a glass of water and she is instantly mollified, no longer bothered about her mother's violation, and actually apologizes for being so inconsiderate to the man she believes has raped her mother as to have screamed. Before leaving his room, she asks him not to leave town, all concern raised by the rape accusation blissfully forgotten.She then shows up later at his room and asks him to kiss her. He does and immediately proposes to her and she halfheartedly says she might. This quick turnaround from screaming at him for sexually assaulting her mother to saying she might marry him, despite them having only gone on one date was the most ridiculous and nonsensical part of the movie. Over the next few days, he then constantly pesters her for an official yes. She tells him she is still is unsure and has been considering marrying Carl instead.Mr. Robinson shows up at his room having found out about Ben's affair with Mrs. Robinson and confronts him. Ben assures Mr. Robinson that he shouldn't be bothered by the affair because it was only about sex and that really he is in love with Elaine. Mr. Robinson isn't comforted by this assertion and tells Ben to stay away from his daughter. Ben speeds to Elaine's dorm and is informed she has left school. Her roommate brings him a letter from Elaine saying that her father is angry and she needs to break off their connection.Not to be deterred by her wishes, he sets off to confront her in person in true stalker form. At night, he hops a fence and sneaks into her parent's home where he finds Mrs. Robinson rather than Elaine. Mrs. Robinson calls the police and Ben takes off in search of Elaine. He shows up at Carl's frat house and finds out that Carl and Elaine ran off to get married. He lies to a few different people to manipulate them into giving him the location and rushes to stop the wedding. He runs out of gas en route and runs the rest of the way. He is too late to stop the marriage, but makes a huge, awkward scene banging a window and repeatedly screaming Elaine's name. She looks stunned and then screams his name in return.This seems to be some sort of agreement between them that the fact that the groom literally kissed his bride not moments ago is yet another petty detail immediately and easily ignored. The two fight their way through the crowd of angry wedding guests toward each other with Mr. Robinson attacking Ben and Mrs. Robinson attacking Elaine. Ben then picks up a large decorative cross and starts fighting off the crowd. Yes, that's right, he literally fights off a church full of a now angry mob by swinging a cross at them. They then slip out a door and use the cross to barricade it in a scene that seems more like a cheesy action movie where the hero fights off the mass of bad guys to protect his love rather than a dramedy. The movie ends as they sit next to each other on a bus, riding away from her less than ideal wedding. Being born in the 80s myself, perhaps I'm missing the nostalgia necessary to make this movie not seem like it was romanticizing making unwelcome sexual overtures. The main characters demonstrate a disturbing and illegal lack of appropriate boundaries- from exposing yourself inappropriately to someone against their objections to literally stalking someone to the extent you take up residence in a new city. But the message is that it's all okay because the other person will really wind up wanting it in the end. Heartwarming.

The one reason that I ended up watching this film is because it was one of those films that always seems to come back again and again. Well, not quite because these days it is pretty dated. In fact I didn't realise that it was as old as it was, and here we see a really, really young Dustin Hoffman playing the role that basically made him a star. The problem was that I really didn't think all that much of this film. Okay, while I didn't hate it, I simply cannot give it a higher rating than I have. The film is about a young man, Ben, who returns from college to Los Angeles with top marks, and of course all of his family friends are so proud of him. Within a short time he discovers that one of his parent's friends is trying to seduce him, and after some hesitation, he decides to get involved. The catch comes about when her daughter also returns and his parents convince him to take her out on a date, much to the horror of her mother. Anyway, after him pursuing her to no end, they finally elope and the film ends. I can sort of see where the comedy in this film lies, however a part of me finds that what is happening is so unrealistic, at least looking at it from this day and age. For instance, he tries do make the first date as bad as possible, only to change his mind, and suddenly it is all okay. As for him constantly pursing her, there is something call harassment. This film is certainly dated when it comes to the content, though a part of me felt that half way through the creators pretty much reached a mental block, and simply did not know how to proceed. Sure, Ben is clearly a smart guy, and at the beginning of the film quite naive, but by the end his behaviour really doesn't seem to make his character all that flattering, and why they didn't end up calling the police when he crashed the wedding, and why Elaine even ran off with him is beyond me. In a way this film is one of those coming of age films, but it is also set at that time when many of us are really unsure where we are going in our life. For most of our lives we are guided, though we do make the occasional choices, such as what to study, however once we have finished university all of a sudden the world has opened up and many of us can be lost. Yet this is also about entering the world of the adult, the world where the innocence of our youths is suddenly destroyed upon the realisation that the people that we grew up with have a much darker side. Mind you, we are looking at the wealthier upper classes, but still, many of us in the middle class go through this angst as well. Still, I didn't find this film all that funny. Well, I could see where it was funny, particularly the scene where he is wandering through the hotel with his date to discover that everybody knows who he is, except they believe that he is somebody different. Then there is his naivety with regards to the affair, and that curiosity which suddenly turns him into a man in the know. He certainly does change, but as I mentioned, the film pretty much degenerates as we get near the end.

The Graduate is a 1967 film directed by Mike Nichols and stars Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, and Katharine Ross. The film is distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, being labeled as a Dramatic Comedy. I was aware of the film's presence in cinema before watching it. But after watching it, I wanted to document my observations and opinions just for you.The Graduate is the story of Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman) fresh out of College who doesn't know what do with his future other than for life to carry him away. After his Graduation party, he becomes seduced by Mrs. Robinson (played by Anne Bancroft) and they start dating. Ben's father then asks him to date the Robinson's daughter, Elaine (played by Katharine Ross) whom Ben is now attracted to and proceeds to do as such. Ben soon gets caught up in troubling affairs and antics throughout in a world not quite as promising as it seemed. Dustin Hoffman's "break-out" performance as Ben Braddock is an excellent audience surrogate, being confused, nervous, and trying to keep his cool through the first half of the film. Plus his character development is great and woven into the progressing story perfectly, who runs in complete circles in the game of life. Anne Bancroft's performance as Mrs. Robinson steals every scene she is present. She has almost total dominance throughout entire scenes, being the perfect blend of sexy and dangerous. Katharine Ross delivers a very good performance as Elaine, showing very convincing emotions when needed. Though I think her character is slightly underwritten as I would have liked to see more of her. I liked a lot about The Graduate (well, that's an understatement). Every single shot never ceases to amaze me with it's composition, movement, length, sound design, and more. I also loved the lighting of each scene, serving as both a metaphor and carefully crafted filmmaking. The film is realistically dark seeing as it envelopes Ben in this newly found adult world, giving new meaning to the term "Dark Comedy". The Soundtrack by Simon & Garfunkel really set the tone and elevate scenes in which it is present. Plus, the songs are enjoyable by themselves, even without context. The Graduate's themes are about adulthood, relationships, and society. Ever since you or anyone turns into an adult, life turns a complete 180 degrees and that can be troublesome for most. But The Graduate makes this turn of events both surreal and grounded, showing this world feeling manufactured and weird, but also with a sense of realism to follow. The lesson I got from the film is that you need to plan things rather than life giving you a rude awakening very quickly.I believe this movie has something for everyone. General audiences can appreciate the depth and the film in general. And people who like cinema outside of watching it will get a surprisingly deep story. And since the film is PG-13, I believe the film is worthy of the rating showing adult themes and even imagery. But I would recommend this movie to anyone mature enough to understand it's themes. I believe this is the same tier of comedy the Coen Brothers and other legendary comedies set decades later.Overall, I give The Graduate a... 9/10

A movie about the coming of age, and a disenchanted college graduate wondering about his future and trying to escape the predestined path his parents want him to follow. The movie shows his idle life through in his eyes lost in his thoughts, in the cross fading, the close-up shots, and Simon and Garfunkel songs. The hesitating young man becomes a self-confident man after having an affair with a mature woman. When he falls in love with her daughter, the life he seeks eventually becomes obvious to him.