The Graduate

In my film class we watched "The Graduate". Having never really watched the film, but having a rough idea of the plot I knew what to expect. Well, I thought I knew what to expect. I had anticipated a film that mirrored what we see with films like "American Pie" today, but this hit something on a much deeper level.

I feel as though this film is both underrated and exalted at the same time. What I mean is that it seems to me that people make way too much of the movie without really understanding the truer or deeper meanings of the film. Many aspects of this are overlooked.

For those who don't know the plot, I will sum it up. A man named Ben (Dustin Hoffman) comes home after recently graduating from college to spend time at home before he picks a graduate school. This stress weighs on him a great deal. The relationship he has with his family isn't really confronted too much other than the fact that they don't listen to him very often and assume they know what he truly wants. They throw a party for him and there he runs into Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). She is an unsual and semi-innapropriate woman and asks Ben to drive her home as she has had a bit to drink. Once they reach her home she bullies him into coming in and propositions him. He is uncomfortable and leaves as soon as he can, which happens to be when Mr. Robinson comes home. They eventually begin an affair which lasts the entire summer. As time wears on a bit more and no one being any the wiser, Mr. Robinson sets Ben up with his daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross), much to Mrs. Robinson's dismay.

On him and Elaine's first date he takes her to strip club and humiliates her. She starts to cry and runs off, her feels guilty and apologizes. He ends up kissing her and they build a relationship from there. He actually falls in love with her. When Mrs. Robinson finds out she threatens to tell her daughter everything so Ben races off to tell Elaine first to give his side of the story. This all blows up in his face and he is forbidden to se Elaine and Mrs. Robinson as well as Mr. Robinson is furious. The families fall apart. Elaine goes back off to college and Ben follows her. She feels disgusted knowing what she does about the affair, but still has feelings for him. Shes a bit wishy washy. Turns out that she is engaged to another man, Carl; and plans to marry him, though Ben also proposes and she says 'yes', well, more of a maybe. In the end Elain goes off to mary Carl and Ben crashes the wedding and Elaine runs off with him. They catch a bus and head off, we aren't exatly sure where they are going and neither are they.

(sometimes I am just god-awful at summarizing things)

Lets start with the characters:

Ben- all the characters seem to be cloaked in various stages of misery. When we meet Ben he is confused and somewhat of a pushover. A girl in my class says she liked him in the beginning and hated him in the end. I completely disagree. I found him to be a bit repulsive in the start of the film. He was weak-willed and had the audacity to have an affair with a married woman. He also would not confront his problems and simply pushed them to the back burner. In the end he never did choose a graduate school. He is sniveling and cowardly. But as the movie progresses he developes a bit of a back bone as he wants badly to be with Elaine. He eventually puts it all on the line in efforts to win her. He redeems himself in pushing forward with what he wants. Yes, he is reckless in his way of executing these things, but love certainly does that. He beats on the windows and screams her name, completely making a fool of himself in order to pull her back to him.

Mrs. Robinson- she is the most miserable of the characters. Stuck in a loveless marriage and clearly starved for affection, though I don't imagine that was her first affair. She seems malicious in her intent but I don't imagine it was her goal to destroy Ben's life. Though I am certain she was quite jealous of his potental as well as Elaine's. In fact when Elaine is running off with Ben and Mrs. Robinson wants her to stay with Carl and live a miserable life as well.

Whether her intentions towards Ben were cruel or not, in the end she is still the antagonist and creates a good portion of the conflict. But we can't take all the blame off Ben.

Elaine- her character isn't too developed. She is a pretty girl and a smart girl and clearly a good match for Ben. She is fickle and easily manipulated, very quickly swayed however. She seems to fall in and out of love and just as unsure as Ben is about what she wants. She also seems quite childish, screaming like an infant when Ben says something that upsets her. When I say screaming I mean shrieking, a sort of blood-curdling scream.

My class ovelooked the moral dilemmas and the significance of these types of relationships. No one could look past the drama of the situations to really dive into the intricate ties between all these characters. The jealousy, latent rage, embarassment, and indecisivness. This film can speak on so many levels. This isn't just another film about a turid love affair gone awry.

The soundtrack is pretty wonderful as well and played inot nicely to the drama. The pairing of the songs, the fading or getting louder in al the right places. Spectacular.