SummaryShy Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) returns home from college with an uncertain future. Then the wife of his father's business partner, the sexy Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), seduces him, and the affair only deepens his confusion. That is, until he meets the girl of his dreams (Katharine Ross). But there's one problem: she's Mrs. Rob...
SummaryShy Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) returns home from college with an uncertain future. Then the wife of his father's business partner, the sexy Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), seduces him, and the affair only deepens his confusion. That is, until he meets the girl of his dreams (Katharine Ross). But there's one problem: she's Mrs. Rob...
All the talents involved in The Graduate make it soar brightly above its shortcomings and, for reasons given, make it a milestone in American film history. Milestones do not guarantee that everything after them will be better, still they are ineradicable.
It takes about three minutes – roughly the length of time it takes Hoffman to get down the moving walkway to Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence and from the airport to the suffocating atmosphere of his graduation party, where he gets gradually trapped into a relationship with one of his parents' friends – to realise that The Graduate is actually a very nasty film, and a very, very funny one.
This is a very good movie that deserves some more attention. The directions style Nichols helps you understand what Benjamin must deal with in the movie. The only reason I am giving this a 9 is because this movie shouldn't be rated PG, and is more for mature moviegoers around 15 and up.
Best-EVER Soundtrack Sync. #1 Greatest Comedy
'The Graduate' is THE best movie comedy of all-time, ranking #1 on my IMDb "Top 10 Greatest Comedies List". The film is culturally significant and a flawless work of cinematic art.
The film propelled director Mike Nichols and actor Dustin Hoffman to the top of the Hollywood A-List.
For baby-boomers, this is an iconic film - a snap-shot of rapid cultural change that occurred in mid-1960s suburbia, complete with its post-college let-down, introspection, angst, and confusion.
Baby boomers perceived things much differently than their Greatest Generation parents, and Nichols (along with screen-play writer Buck Henry) integrated the resulting "generation-gap" in a way no film had done before.
Dustin Hoffman was fortunate to get the lead part as legend has it, and Nichols was fortunate to get him - both took advantage of the opportunity, and we are all fortunate they did so.
The best soundtrack sync in movie history... One morning at the beginning of the film's production planning, Nichols had an epiphany about using the introspective and melancholy music of Simon & Garfunkel in the film - The resulting sound track "music sync" established what was then, a new standard for use of popular music as an integral part of story telling. NO film since then has done this better. Without that music sync, this would have been a fine film, but it would not have reached its legendary film status.
Buck Henry's original screen-play delivers some very funny scenes - the hotel scenes running from the approximate 20 to 35 minute marks in the film are hilarious and everyone pulled it off to subtle perfection. Nichols ensured those comic moments were delivered with impeccable timing by utilizing Henry as a Day Player in the role of hotel manager.
Anne Bancroft is brilliant and hot, and portrays her tragic and narcissistic character with perfection, in what has become an iconic film character.
Much of the film's success is due to the performance of the ensemble cast. Nichols directs the movie like one of his stage productions where every line by every actor has impact.
This is Mike Nichols' greatest and most important achievement in film, and over time has made many top 10 greatest comedy as well as all-time favorite movie lists. If one were to place slap-stick into its own separate genre (as so often the Chaplin and Marx Brothers films are cited as greatest comedies but are based largely on physical pantomime, not dialogue based comedy-drama), I believe this film is THE all-time greatest comedy in film.
What else can I add that hasn't already been stated by many others?
See 'The Graduate' again when the mood strikes.
First timers, you are in for a treat.
"Here's to you Mrs. Robinson!"
The Graduate is a delightful, satirical comedy-drama about a young man's seduction by an older woman, and the measure of maturity which he attains from the experience.
The Graduate, the erratic, jet-age film at the Coronet and Lincoln Art, has two standout performances - one from a young actor, who looks as if the worries of the world rested on his sawed-off body, and another from a director, still new to movies, whose spit and polish technique at times borders on genius.
Looked at now (2017), The Graduate is frankly a film you admire more than actually enjoy experiencing. Dark, pitiless and despairing, it plays stranger and more distant to me today than it did back in the day. So much so that one wonders if that was the plan from the beginning, when the fact that its mildly transgressive attitude seemed fresh and new disguised its essential nature.
One of my personal favorite movies. I will always remember the first time I saw it. It was one of the first times that I had ever felt so emotionally attached to a character's story, mostly because it was like watching myself.
A very very very forced love between Ben and Elaine. He takes her to a strip club in one scene, and in another she's in love with him. Overrated movie.
The movie is utterly fantastic until they introduce Mrs Robinson's daughter and then it immediately becomes an utter pile of garbage. It really does. The plot from that point on makes absolutely no sense and totally throws away Mrs Robinson, who we saw get built up over the course of the first hour of the freaking movie!
Le film est un brin iconoclaste, ce qui n'était pas si courant dans ces années 60 mais après tout en 1967, on n'était pas si loin de "mai 68" et de la révolte des jeunes en mal de sexe, de drogue et de musique de merde.
D'ailleurs parlons-en de la musique, absolument insupportable et répétée ad nauseam pendant tout le film... de quoi filer une migraine carabinée. Et puis si Dustin Hoffman est parfaitement à l'aise dans sa petite Alfa rouge (il vaut mieux en effet ne pas dépasser 1,60 m pour ne pas dépasser du pare-brise) ça reste un vilain petit canard à l'image de ce personnage falot et indécis qui ne sait pas vraiment ce qu'il veut...
Et pourtant, après s'être tapé la mère, il se dit qu'emballer la fille ne serait pas une mauvaise idée finalement. Du coup, la maman est un peu vénère. Pour le reste, on reste... dans une sorte de bluette nunuche et faussement irrévérencieuse, une espèce de bouquin Harlequin très con-con et trop ennuyeux pour qu'on s'y amuse... même au second ou troisième degré.