The Graduate – 1967
I’ll be honest, I’m having a difficult time liking this movie, and I’m not sure exactly why. The plot was interesting enough and the acting was pretty spot-on. The look and feel of the film definitely portrayed a 60s vibe, and even the confused and adolescent attitude of the era was appropriate.
But I think there were a number of things that didn’t quite work for me. First, believe it or not, I didn’t like the music, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Second, I didn’t like most of the characters. Third, I thought the pacing was unnecessarily slow. And fourth, I thought that some of the directing choices were a bit off.
Dustin Hoffman played the lead character, college graduate, Benjamin Braddock, a whiney and neurotic 21 year old. The film begins as he arrives home after graduation to a house full of family friends that he doesn’t particularly like. The uncertainty of his future frightens him and he just wants to be left alone. But his controlling parents, played by William Daniels and Elizabeth Wilson, are so self-involved that they have a habit of hearing him without listening to him, and are thus incapable of understanding him.
One of the party guests, Mrs. Robinson, played by Anne Bancroft, who is an alcoholic, gets Ben to drive her home, manipulates him into going into her house with her, and does her best to seduce him into having sex with her, even going so far as to present herself to him as naked as a jay-bird. He refuses her advances, but later asks her to meet him at a hotel for a forbidden rendezvous. Well, to make a long story short, they have an ongoing affair until he goes out with Mrs. Robinson’s beautiful daughter Elaine, played by Katharine Ross, and falls head-over-heels in love with her. See? It has the makings of a great plot, right? So why am I having trouble liking this movie?
OK, so as I mentioned earlier, one of the biggest disconnects for me was the music. The film’s music was written and performed by the sensational folk/rock duo, Simon and Garfunkel. Four songs, in particular, were used in the movie: Scarborough Fair/Canticle, The Sound of Silence, April Come She Will, and of course, Mrs. Robinson, the last one being the only one that premiered in the film. Don’t get me wrong. I love the music. All of it. But it didn’t seem to fit the movie. The lyrics didn’t have anything to do with the action taking place on the screen. The music fostered a certain feel and determined the movie’s pacing, but it all seemed way too slow. I think the music was too gentle and the story didn’t feel at all gentle.
And then there were director Mike Nichols’ attempts to make the movie more edgy and experimental than it needed to be. It was as if he was trying to use unique camera angles and odd blocking choices that sometimes kept certain characters separated from each other, and at other times, kept them strangely together.
Sometimes his edgy camerawork succeeded, like in the scene where Mrs. Robinson first throws herself at Ben. The camera is focused on him while quick flashes of her bare breasts violently force their way onto the screen, effectively portraying Ben’s horror at his situation. But at other times, Nichols was trying to be too clever and it just translated as awkward. For example, the scene in which Ben is forced to embarrass himself in front of his parent’s friends by parading around in full scuba gear and jump in the pool. The scene was filmed from Ben’s perspective, through the scuba mask, even after he is in the water. I know it was supposed to be funny, but the scene felt contrived, like it was trying too hard to be humorous. And then the slow and melancholy music would start playing, immediately sucking anything that resembled comedy right out of the scene.
Anne Bancroft was the best part of the film. Her character, while not exactly likable, was well-played. Mrs. Robinson was probably the most complex, and therefore the most realistic of the main characters, and I think that had just as much to do with the script as with Bancroft’s good performance.