The Graduate veers away from like-minded films by giving us a totally rebellious end. The handsomely swath-skinned Dustin Hoffman here plays the role of Benjamin who has just graduated. In the honorific party his parents have groomed, he withdraws into his room appalled by thoughts of his future. In his attempts to procure a moment for himself, the svelte Mrs. Robinson (played by the superb Anne Bancroft), a longtime acquaintance of his parents, emerges pretentiously looking for the bathroom but bizarrely seducing him by first insisting that he drives her home, accompanies her to the bedroom, and unzips her dress. There is a sense of quirkiness about the situation as a whole given that the pace was too direct maybe with a certain rush that is forgiven as it gives us something different than what we grew accustomed to. An older lady alluring a younger man is not anymore something shocking in its turpitude, no more than the disappearance of poetic justice in the treatment of faux pas in this film particularly or maybe because we haven't really sympathized with Mrs. Robinson who is dour, blanch, and a perfect planner. Maybe we haven't sympathized with Mrs. Robinson as there wasn't but a vapid conversation between them, only silent copulation. Even when Ben brought the subject up for discussion, lamenting a prosaic communication that made it all the more easy for him to be conscious-stricken, Mrs. Robinson expressed a desire to forgo a past she rued and a present she detested. Thus there is no vividness to be empathized with or sad for until Elaine her daughter appears and the lack of sympathy transforms into an increasing contempt for the nefarious deformation of innocence carried out by the older woman. Especially when she forces him to promise that he may never ask her daughter out. When Ben takes Elaine out, forcedly, and they talk, we could see clearly the possibility of a brighter future hadn't it been mired in the besmirching immodesty that turned a naïve young man into a rascal. The film's end which shouldn't be revealed here is amusing, different and makes it worthwhile to watch. Plus the sublime music of Simon and Garfunkel that was played and replayed all over the film. All in all, the film's unpredictability serves the film's right to be listed amongst best films thanks to Mike Nichols and Charles Webb.
