Director – Mike Nichols
Main Cast
Dustin Hoffman – Benjamin Braddock
Anne Bancroft – Mrs Robinson
Katherine Ross – Elaine Robinson
“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?.”
To kickstart this challenge I was fortunate enough to watch The Graduate in my local cinema as part of their Awards Season. It was just my husband and I along with maybe 3 or 4 other couples in a dark movie theatre for the next 1hr 45 minutes.
Honestly walking out of the cinema once the credits started rolling I didn’t know what to think. I knew I liked it, but I didn’t know why? The first 20 minutes did not convince me. I thought to myself what have I let myself in for. Benjamin Braddock making his way across LAX, and the slow moving travelator scene wasn’t exactly enticing.
Then we have the commotion at Ben’s parents house. Honestly you’d think he was the first person to ever graduate college with a degree! The amount of butt kissing was too much and apparently it was too much for poor old Ben as well who just wanted to go and hide in his bedroom.
And then in comes Mrs Robinson. Of course the Mrs Robinson I knew was the older woman that seduced Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey novels (no judgments! Those books were a vibe back in the day). I didn’t realise that the Simon and Garfunkel song of the same name was about THIS Mrs. Robinson.
Speaking of Simon and Garfunkel, the soundtrack to this movie is just straight up weird. I feel like Simon and Garfunkel are a bit like marmite, you either love or hate them. I fear I’m the latter. However in the context of The Graduate I think they are a perfect fit. Their strange beat and dreary sounding lyrics compliment the mood of this film.
This movie is one of those films you need to sit with, the more you think about it the more it makes sense, or at least you start to comprehend what director Mike Nichols wanted you to think. Which is why I couldn’t really put my finger on why I liked the film as I was leaving the cinema.
Looking back now I can appreciate specific scenes. For example Benjamin walking out wearing the scuba suit. You can hear his parents yapping away at him, but from his point of view it was just noise, again with him slipping under the water wearing the suit to drown out the noise. Nichols also did an excellent job of showing us, not using un-necessary dialogue to tell us what was going on. There were large parts of the film where there was no dialogue at all, but I think that added to the movie’s identity.
It seems that Ben was for the most part inexperienced with women so the fact that that older woman was seen to be ‘pursuing’ him was quite an eye opener for him, and it was a perfect example of the times. In 1967 the pill had just become available for women regardless of their marital status, so more and more women were taking their sexual health into their own hands. After all, if men could sow their wild oats, why couldn’t women?
Whereas Mrs Robinson is a victim of her circumstance. She would have been told by her mother to marry into wealth and it’ll solve all her problems. A loveless marriage turns to drink and resentment, but there is a need to keep up appearances for society
I can imagine that an older married woman seducing a younger man was quite the controversial topic in 1967. But the tide was turning and The Graduate portrays this in a way that is not over the top and distasteful. Of course we see the aftermath of the affair towards the end of the film which sees the relationship of Mr and Mrs Robinson break down even further, and the need for Elaine to be married as soon as possible so Ben cannot continue his relationship with her.
I hate the fact that Elaine is told that Benjamin assaulted Mrs Robinson. Yes I understand that they used this as an excuse as to why Elaine should cease her relationship with Ben, but that isn’t fair on Ben and there are plenty of other reasons to give to try and deter Elaine from pursuing her relationship.
Benjamin is very autistic coded and forthright with his words. At times it was kind of cringy, but at the same time I got it. He just wasn’t used to being in this situation and had no idea how to act. But we need to discuss the timeline of Benjamin and Elaine’s relationship.
Firstly, Mrs Robinson’s warning to Ben to discontinue with his pursuit of Elaine. Weird! Okay so I get that she was jealous… Again weird, but understandable. Who wants to know that their daughter is going to be involved with someone that they had themselves been intimate with.
One minute Ben is appeasing Mrs Robinson by telling her that he won’t continue with Elaine. He takes her on a disastrous date to a strip club in which she flees in distress, the next he’s hightailing it to Berkeley to chase after her and propose marriage!
This highlights Ben’s impulsiveness, potentially naivety and selfishness as well. He knows that being with Elaine is not going to end well for either of them, particularly after her Dad shows up and threatens him if he does not leave Elaine alone. But he does it anyway. He turns up at Elaine’s shotgun wedding, banging on the church window to try and stop the ceremony.
As soon as I saw Ben banging on the glass of the church I could not help but make comparisons to the simpson’s when Marge’s Mum (Mrs Bouvier) is marrying Mr Burns and Grampa Simpson tries to stop the wedding. I had THE biggest grin on my face. My husband didn’t make the same connection and as soon as we got home I had to show him the episode ending.
Finally in the end Ben got the girl and they ran away and lived happily ever after, didn’t they? Well that’s up to you to decide. Mike Nichols purposely didn’t give us a definitive answer. Ben and Elaine are sat at the back of the bus all smiles and laughter, but as the bus continues to drive and the adrenaline settles the smiles fade and the ramifications of what they just did start to sink in.
Maybe they did have their happy ending, but it certainly won’t be an easy road ahead for them.
This movie has stayed with me for sure and I have no doubt if I were to watch this again there would be something that I didn’t pick up on the first time, and those are the best films. The ones that make you think, the ones that keep you talking even after the credits roll.
This movie 100% deserves its spot in the 1001 movies to watch challenge, and I will 100% be rewatching this again before I die.
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