...director Mike Nichols goes out of his way to make the film as humorous as possible and any messages as subtle as they can be.
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"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"
A lot of people were seduced by the charms of both "The Graduate" and "Easy Rider" in the late sixties, two very different films with similar themes about the alienation of youth. Of the two, however, it's "The Graduate" that holds up best today, as funny and touching as ever. Not too many young persons are taking off and dropping out anymore, but they still often have that empty feeling that comes when being on their own for the first time and facing a seemingly meaningless and indifferent world.
Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) is about to turn twenty-one; he has just graduated from college and has returned to live temporarily with his parents before deciding what to do with the rest of his life. What he sees does not encourage him. His father (William Daniels) is a successful lawyer, his mother (Elizabeth Wilson) a housewife, their house a luxurious affair in an affluent suburban neighborhood, with swimming pool and every imaginable convenience. He recognizes in them, and in their disposition toward him, a hollow materialism. They live for things, not people. Ben has merely become another of their objects of display to friends and relatives, a fancy cog that eventually must fit into the larger machine of existence. He is told that his future lies in "plastics," an apt description for the artificial people and attitudes around him. Ben can't stand it. He doesn't want to turn into his parents.
But without the background necessary to make strong and decisive value judgments, he flounders. As a matter of personal rebellion, he reluctantly enters into an affair with a manipulative older woman, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), the wife of his father's business partner (Murray Hamilton) and a woman who has known him since he was born. The affair is the only thing at that moment that relieves him of his boredom and the dismal prospects of his future. But Ben eventually sees it for what it is, another vain and purposeless gesture.
His saving grace comes in the person of Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross), the Robinsons' daughter, a young woman of such honesty, innocence, and beauty he is completely won over by her. For perhaps the first time in his life, Ben recognizes someone of merit, somebody to whom he can make a commitment, something of virtue worth fighting for. He learns that a sincere personal relationship is more important than the pursuit of wealth or temporal interests.
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[release]3379[/release]