#17 The Graduate (1967)

Plot summary (with spoilers): Benjamin's on a plane. He arrives at the airport, greets his parents. They drive him home. He's numb, used up, uncertain, doesn't know what's coming next in life at all. He just graduated college. His old parents invite all their old friends to come to his graduation party. They crowd him and push their faces in his face and smile and blabber and say nothing, loudly, in his ear, nonstop, all teeth and hair and meaningless platitudes. He can barely stand it. He escapes to his room. There's a knock at the door. It's his father's business partner's wife, Mrs. Robinson. She smokes a cigarette. He just wants her to leave. She says she's drunk, asks him to drive her home. He does, to get rid of her. She asks him to walk her to the front door, just so she can be safe until she turns the lights on. He does. She asks him to walk her down the hall, to make doubly sure all the lights work. He does. She asks if he wants a drink. He does not. She pours him a Bourbon from a big weird wooden brown bottle marked "BOURBON" on the side in white cursive. He takes the glass. She asks him personal questions. Asks him if he's seeing anybody. He declares that she's trying to seduce him. She laughs and denies it. He apologizes, wants to go. She won't let him go. She asks him upstairs. She asks him to help her unzip. She traps him in her daughter's old room and corners him, naked. He sees a flash of boob, of hip, he can't breathe, he can't get out.
Mr. Robinson drives up the driveway. Benjamin races downstairs, pours himself another Bourbon. Mr. Robinson greets him without suspicion, and thanks him for driving his wife home from the party. He makes Benjamin promise he'll take out Elaine Robinson sometime once she gets home from college, too.
Benjamin Braddock is 21, single, depressed, lives with his parents, and is still 30+ years away from decent internet porn. He calls Mrs. Robinson and asks her to meet him at a hotel.
There's some hilarious hotel clerk-related shenanigans as a nervous Benjamin procures a room for the sexing, but finally he and Mrs. Robinson are ready to hit the sheets. He kisses her nervously and self-consciously and stalls and stammers and blah de blah until finally she taunts him and accuses him of being "inadequate", so he ravages her to prove her wrong. (Note to real life women: this will not work).
They begin an affair that lasts several months. No conversation, no dinners, no dates, just hotels and sex. But Benjamin's still adrift and unsatisfied and wants something more. He begs Mrs. Robinson to talk to him, to have a conversation with him, but she's reluctant and difficult. Meanwhile, his parents relay the message that the Robinson's daughter Elaine is coming home from school soon for a few weeks, and they're insisting he take her out. Mrs. Robinson forbids it, but Benjamin goes along with it when he learns that his parents will arrange a dinner party with the six of them if he doesn't.
On the date, Benjamin's rude and dismissive of Elaine, and even takes her to a strip club. When the stripper twirls her tassels in Elaine's face, she begins to cry and Benjamin's heart melts. He apologizes profusely. They leave the club, he takes her for hot dogs and coke at the drive-in. They talk about their fears post-college, and about how weird old people are. He confesses that he tried to drive her away because he's having an affair with a married older women who she totally doesn't know.
Benjamin's in love. He tries to take her out again, but Mrs. Robinson confronts him. She insists they drive around the block and talk. The rain is coming down in buckets. She screams at Benjamin that he's forbidden from seeing her daughter again. She threatens to expose the affair if he disobeys. Benjamin parks the car and races to the house, drenched. Elaine answers the door and Benjamin starts babbling about the affair he mentioned earlier. Mrs. Robinson comes walking up behind them, scowling. Elaine gets it. She screams at Benjamin to leave. He does.
Suddenly, Benjamin is telling his parent's that he's engaged. To Elaine Robinson. They're elated until he confesses that she doesn't know they're engaged and doesn't really even like him.
And here things get a little hinky. I was loving every second up until then. Is Benjamin supposed to be insane? He didn't seem insane.
At any rate, he follows her back to her school at Berkeley, rents a room at a boarding house owned by Mr. Roper (yes really, the same actor, playing essentially the same part), and starts stalking Elaine. He confronts her, confesses his love to her, she says she's seeing someone else and wants nothing to do with him. She says that her mother says he raped her. He loudly insists that's not true and she screams and then suddenly believes him. They confess they love each other.
Again, huh? I was really loving this movie. But this is a bridge too far. This isn't a farce, is it?  Like Airplane! or The Naked Gun? But Mr. Robinson then goes to Berkeley and confronts Benjamin, calling him a degenerate. He's shockingly not mollified by Benjamin's assurances that his relationship with Mrs. Robinson was purely sexual and his relationship with Elaine is the real deal. He forbids Benjamin from interacting with anyone in the family ever again. He tells Benjamin that Elaine is marrying her boyfriend at Berkeley, Carl and she doesn't want to see him.
Mr. Robinson leaves, screaming at Benjamin that he's a pervert and a creep, and Mr. Roper overhears and kicks Benjamin out.
Benjamin races back to the Robinson's house, but finds Mrs. Robinson instead of Elaine. She tells him that he's too late. The wedding is today. She won't tell him where or when, and drives off. Benjamin does some crazy detective work, first asking Carl's frat brothers about the wedding, and then pretending to need to speak to Carl's father, who is a doctor. He finds out it's in Santa Barbara. He drives like crazy up the 101, swerving around traffic, blowing through lights on the surface streets. His car runs out of gas about a half mile before he reaches the church, so he starts running. He reaches the church and appears in the doorway of the cathedral just in time to see Elaine kissing Carl. He screams her name. She whirls around. Mr and Mrs. Robinson and Carl all make insanely angry faces and scream at Benjamin to leave. Elaine looks conflicted, but finally throws her head back and screams "BENJAMIN!!!"
...aaand I'm totally back in. This is fucking bugnuts and awesome.
They race toward each other and the entire church full of people rise up at one to stop them. Benjamin rips a fucking cross off the wall and brandishes it at everyone threateningly, like they're a pack of vampires. This. Is. Fucking. Awesome. Mrs. Robinson screams at Elaine that it's too late, and she says "not for me!" and Mrs. Robinson slaps her, claws at her face. Benjamin breaks them apart and they run for the door, using the cross to wedge the doors shut behind them. They sprint down the steps, as the wedding guests claw ineffectually at the glass door. They run around the corner and hop on a city bus. They go to the back and sit, triumphantly grinning from ear to ear. It's beautiful.
But then this happens:  Reality. Their smiles slowly fade as the ramifications of their actions sets in.  They can never go back. They're all they have now, and they barely even know each other.
The bus rolls on, indifferent.

Review: All I really knew about this movie going into it was that Mrs. Robinson tries to seduce him. I didn't even know about Elaine, really. Like I said earlier, I was loving the first half of this, totally grooving on the completely unexpected comedy of it all and I thought Hoffman and Bancroft were perfect. For some reason, I thought it was going to be a love story about the two of them, and was resistant when Elaine was brought in. I still have reservations about what followed, though. It didn't play like a broad farce to me, and it wasn't really believable that they were suddenly totally in love. Yes, I know that they weren't really in love, but even so...one date? And Elaine already was seeing someone she could plausibly get married to? Why was her dad pushing her to go out with Benjamin in the first place, then? And how could she look past the fact that he was doing her mom? Just didn't work for me.
But the crazy ending redeemed all my earlier misgivings. The directing was great, too. I really enjoyed Mike Nichols' showy camera tricks and angles. That's always a hard line to walk. You can easily go too far and be accused of being masturbatory. It must enhance the story and seem organic rather than gratuitous, and it's definitely a YMMV type-deal on whether or not a particular director succeeds. I think he did very much so, here. Wiki says Nichols wanted Doris Day as Mrs. Robinson, Gene Hackman as Mr. Robinson, and Robert Redford as Benjamin.  Wow. As great as Hoffman and Bancroft were, that would've been pretty fucking spectacular. And no offense to Dustin, but an actually attractive Benjamin would've made more sense, too. (I like it when people say "no offense" before they say something totally offensive. Don't worry, I'm sure Dustin doesn't read this blog).

Stars: Four and a half out of five.

Next, "Sunset Boulevard" and then a movie that bored me to tears fifteen years ago. Let's hope I've matured enough to enjoy "2001: A Space Odyssey".