The+Graduate+Review


 * The Graduate**

The 1967 film //The Graduate// was the first of its kind. A film that proposed that the adult generation of the time was a generation of emotionless, superficial “plastics” living the American Dream. It was a defining movie of a generation of free love, drug culture and hippie politics.

Our hero in this movie is an East coast college graduate by the name of Ben Braddock, returning to his parents’ upper class way of Californian life. Worried about what’s to come, Ben doesn’t really take steps to move forward with his life because he simply just doesn’t know what he wants to come. He’s a confused youth, mirroring the times he’s growing up in. That’s really what the movie has to deal with most: confusion.

Ben’s parents have it all planned out for him: graduate school, a steady, high paying job, a wife and kids of his own. In a conversation with his father in the beginning of the film, he tells him he doesn’t know what he wants to do, but he wants it to be “different”. To further add to his confusion, Ben’s seduced by his father’s business partner’s wife, Mrs. Robinson. The affair is purely sexual and it just mixes him up more when he falls in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine.

All aspects of this movie are superb. Director Mike Nichols does a wonderful job with camera angles and shots, really showing Ben’s alienation from the crowd and defining his character. The soundtrack is splendidly done by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, the mellow sound of their music setting a peaceful (and sometimes dark) tone for the movie. In the opening scene, we see Ben maneuvering through the airport returning home, everyone around him joyous and happy, Ben walking straight faced with his arms hung at his sides. In the background we hear “The Sound of Silence”, giving the viewer an eerie feeling of joy and sorrow at the same time.

Above all other things, the casting of this movie is impeccable. Dustin Hoffman is a perfect Ben Braddock; his facial expressions and the way he carries himself through his character changes as the movie progresses are superb. Anne Bancroft plays the sexy and seductive Mrs. Robinson, a timeless character who could be dropped into the twenty first century and not look an inch out of place. William Daniels and Elizabeth Wilson are Mr. & Mrs. Braddock, doing a great job playing the stereotypical upper class Californian parents. The two together mirror the generation of suit and tie, structured, working adults, incarnations of the idea of “The Man”.