Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) is fresh out of university and back at his parents’ California home in a daze. What’s he going to do with his life now? He hasn’t had a chance to start sorting that out, but his parents and their friends have a lot of ideas. One of them – Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) – has the most immediate idea of all. She’s intent on seducing Benjamin.
Through his summer of uncertainty, Benjamin spends his days lounging around the pool and his nights sneaking off with Mrs. Robinson. If you think fooling around with the wife of your father’s business partner makes life complicated, try adding a crush on her daughter. When Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross) comes home for the summer, that’s exactly what happens. Ben finds himself sandwiched between the embittered desperation of Mrs. Robinson and his own attraction to the ambivalent but beautiful Elaine. Ben finds that the only way he can return to sanity is to act in a distinctly crazy manner.
You’re simply not going to find a film with sharper, more biting, socially conscious humour than The Graduate. It’s funny – extremely funny – in a low-key and sardonic way. Director Mike Nichols, who also made two other memorable films in the late ‘60s-early ‘70s era (Catch-22 and Carnal Knowledge) has done great things with the script Buck Henry and Calder Willingham drew from the Charles Webb novel. It’s smart, witty, and troubling all at the same time.
The Graduate is all about social compliance, the uncertainty of youth and the ease with which many people sell out. Interestingly, the big issues that separated generations in the ‘60s aren’t dealt with in any explicit way. Vietnam, racial segregation and women’s rights all go unmentioned. Instead, the film delivers a more timeless message by dealing with broader issues such as the fear of young people as they reach full adulthood, the stress between ‘success’ and personal fulfilment and the disillusionment and hopelessness some people experience in middle age.
This movie made Dustin Hoffman a star, and even though he didn’t fit the stereotype the filmmakers were initially looking for – he wasn’t a tall, blonde, California ‘surfboard’ – Hoffman is nearly perfect in the role. He’s a confused, fumbling young man trapped between youth and adulthood and entirely unsure of what to do next. Bancroft is wonderfully painful to watch as the manipulative and extremely sad Mrs. Robinson. She’s scheming and mean, but it’s her sad face that sticks in your mind after watching The Graduate.
The film is enhanced by a gaggle of classic Simon and Garfunkel tunes, and is credited as the first film to use hit rock/pop music as an integral part of its soundtrack. Only one of the songs (Mrs. Robinson) was written specifically for the movie.
A third of a century after its release, The Graduate is as relevant and as entertaining as it was in 1967. It’s a classic you won’t want to miss.
