The Graduate

The Graduate (1967) is about a young man fresh out of university who has no idea what to do, and that indecision is the subject of the film, not its background. Benjamin comes home, his parents expect a plan, and he sits by the pool. Mrs. Robinson, a friend of the family, seduces him. While the affair continues he falls in love with her daughter Elaine. The ages are the strangest fact about it. Dustin Hoffman was twenty nine playing a twenty one year old. Anne Bancroft, playing the older woman he sleeps with, was thirty five, only six years his senior. The Simon and Garfunkel songs were laid in afterwards and became the benchmark for that kind of scoring. The last shot is one of the most discussed closings in cinema. On the back seat of the bus their smiles slowly fade and something empty replaces them. Why that happened is disputed: by one account nobody called cut and the actors did not know what to do; by Katharine Ross's account they knew the shot might run under the credits and tried to stay in character. Either way, what is on screen is not acting. Mike Nichols won the Oscar for direction. It runs 106 minutes. Good for: sixties American cinema, character comedy, and generational films. Less good for: the pace is slow, the female lead is written in the manner of its time, and the ending is not romantic.