108 of 1001 Movies: The Graduate (1967)

Mike Nichols biggest movie hit has to be The Graduate. The plot will be on for some and off for others. Maybe the theme of the older generation taking advantage of the recent college graduates doesn't ring as relatable, but being out of college and sort of lost as to where to go still does as most are still grasping to try to find what makes them happy instead of others as it does sometimes feel we live our lives for a while in the hopes of impressing others until we find we need to find what makes us tick.

Ben is a recent college graduate who arrives home to find himself receiving the congratulations emptily. Mrs. Robinson, his dad's business partners' wife,has different plans to approach him when he gets home though, and sets out to seduce him. Ben looking for something deeper finally caves into having an affair with her. Without considering the implications down the road, Ben finds himself being set up with Mrs. Robinson's daughter, Elaine, and while he tries to destroy their date he finds himself instead falling for her leading Mrs. Robinson to try to ruin him.


The Graduate is probably one of the most highly misread movies there is as most read it as a romance about two people willing to disrupt their comfortable lives, and the hopes of their parents to be together, but that isn't really what led it to be a preserved movie by the Library of Congress. Instead the idea that young adults were being taken advantage by the older generation of Plastics was a real thing happening, and it shows the impact it was having on people like Ben.

Dustin Hoffman is off to a very early start, and is a lot younger as Ben. He plays Ben perfectly though, and for a guy who has the whole world ahead of him he plays him as truly a guy who seems nervous about the world in general and what it is trying to offer him. Anne Bancroft is Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, and she becomes probably one of the most memorable movie characters of all time for her part in this movie. You'll be thinking for days over what it is that is exactly driving her character to seek out this attention from him, and then wreck his life in the process. Also, Katharine Ross is Elaine, and she isn't the most memorable of any character in this movie, but at the end you probably feel the most for her. She ends up having no one really healthy to turn to. She is being pressured into a marriage, and Ben isn't the most stable minded person to turn to.

The Graduate is overall a movie that has odd humor, but it really works because it is so awkward. There are a couple of places where the movie seems to jump around almost making the ending feel like a completely different movie from the beginning. It sort of loses the dynamic of Mrs. Robinson and Ben's relationship too soon for it to have felt fully developed as far was what the repercussions of that would have been.

With great performances from the cast though the movie ranks as a favorite, and the humor is spot on. At the end you the facial expressions say more than any words could about the thoughts of the characters, and it makes it quite powerful. It's a great place for Dustin Hoffman to have began, and there are some moments that instantly jump from funniness to sadness making it unique.

Rating 9 of 10.