dir. Mike Nichols — 1967
106 min
I’ll start off with the fact I hadn’t even seen this movie before this year and I’ve already watched it three times now. Yes of course, it has its elements that don’t quite age as well, but this movie still stands—for me—as the best coming-of-age movie ever made.
The coming-of-age category of media no matter whether it’s film, shows, books, hell even music is my favorite category, likely because it is where I stand now in my current stage of life, and I find these movies so goddamn relatable my heart aches as I watch. And still with my love for this theme, I still stand that The Graduate has done it best.
You get every feeling right from the get-go that this guy Ben (Dustin Hoffman) is being suffocated left and right from the adults around him who only press on about what it is he’s gonna do with his life now post-college and you feel his exhaustion from being pressed on so much all the time and how he can never seem to catch a break.
This movie is sort of a time-lapse of Ben’s unraveling as the self he grew up being to the self he’s still trying to figure out.
If you’re just graduating college/in your early 20s and haven’t seen it yet, I genuinely, highly recommend it, probably much more than I will anything else, because even if nothing else, it’s a damn funny movie.
Also if you’re a Simon & Garfunkel fan, this movie is gonna be a major test for you,,,
(major spoilers below!!)
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One thing I love about this movie is how he is constantly surrounded only by older adults, parents and their friends, without anyone his age until we meet Elaine (Katharine Ross) and when he finally goes to Berkeley and is basically only around other young people minus the landlord who hates him and Mr. Robinson who hates him by then too. We’re able to see how people around him perceive him depending on their age group which just about sums up that feeling of being judged by every adult around you, but not given attention at all (in a kinda good way) by everyone your age.
We see Ben be his dorky self who is trying to maintain the image his parents had of him since he was a child, refusing any passes by Mrs. Robinson, since he only knows to follow his parents’ wishes for him. We see him let himself get pushed around by all the adults who don’t really care about how he feels about things, they just press on their own agendas toward him including the iconic “Plastics.” line. By the end of the movie, however, Ben is able to finally decide for himself what he wants to do with his life without wanting to take anyone else into consideration after they’ve done him wrong, yet through his and Elaine’s rebellion, they end up at a standstill, not knowing where the fuck to go next.
Also, can we talk about that montage? How iconic to have a TWO-SONG montage, like who else does a montage longer than a single song?! Insane. And all the beautiful shots blending into each other as Ben falls into a spiral of avoiding the future and just enjoying what he can get as Mr. Robinson told him to try at the beginning of the film. And that final dive that lands him on top of Mrs. Robinson again is unparalleled. It’s such a beautiful sequence within such expertly-composed mise-en-scène for the film, so, kudos to the cinematographer Robert Surtees. I truly love when shot compositions are handled so delicately and perfectly and this movie does every shot so carefully it’s genuinely awesome.
Of course, we’re not gonna skip over the legendary (and often critiqued) Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack. Now, yes, I understand some people don’t want to hear Scarborough Fair played 4 times in a row or whatever, or the same with The Sound of Silence and Mrs. Robinson, so I get that may have irritated some people from wanting to go through with a movie that feels longer than it is, because of this repetitiveness. To me, however, I never truly minded, if anything anytime I heard Scarborough Fair start again I just laughed. It feels so part of the narrative, of having to go through the same shit over and over again just to get somewhere new and exciting, and the music overall elevated whatever Ben felt. And I’m sorry but imagine writing a song that in itself probably is more famous than the movie it was made for and yet feels just as awesome hearing it play in its different varieties during the movie.
You can’t tell me that while Ben was running to find Elaine back and forth from Berkeley to Los Angeles, you didn’t feel chills and your heart pick up with every step he ran and every turn of the car! Even after just recently watching it for the third time I still felt so anxious for him to get to the church on time with the guitar strumming exactly to his pace, it’s just so fucking awesome man—there’s a reason this is one of the most iconic movie endings ever!!
If you ever get the privilege to see it on screen again like I did, please go, it’s so great. But it’s also fun to be watching it with your friends at home with some beers and screaming the lyrics of Mrs. Robinson at the top of your lungs as he gets closer.
AND FINALLY——the church scene.
ELAINE!
ELAINEE!!
ELAINEEE!!!!
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BEEEEEEEEEENNNN
If you just saw the movie for the first time, watch it again and scream with them—even in a movie theatre, trust me.
Ben and Elaine fighting off Elaine’s family and their friends, even beating up Mr. Robinson and running from Mrs. Robinson and fighting off everyone else with the Power of Christ and locking everyone in the church is insane and all the more when you remember for the tenth time that this movie was filmed in the ’60s. Such an awesome climax of tension for everything the two lovers have been going through this whole time.
And of course the final shot in the bus. They finally got what they wanted.
Now what?
You see the boredom creep up again, the fear, the lost eyes, they finally start thinking on their actions, the consequences they now face. The reality of the situation. And this is it. The reason why it’s the best coming-of-age movie, in my opinion. It was all out of rebellion for trying to force them into lives they were never given the chance of conceiving for themselves. Now they see this was all just trying to break free from their parents, no matter what it took. Without thinking still again about the future. Just knowing they needed to get out now. But the thing is they’re adults now and they’ve gotta actually put the work in and “get a job”. Reality doesn’t care about ambitions and blaming the system.
It’s so… real.
Anyways, yeah, I could go on to critique how Elaine felt like a non-character as we barely got to feel what her motives and ambitions were (though we do get that she doesn’t seem to care much about important aspects of her life, marrying whoever’s easiest, following the same course of regret Mrs. Robinson went through), and go on about the beautiful back-and-forth dialogue between Ben and Mrs. Robinson during the first seduction, or the questionable, poorly-aged-in-today’s-society sex scenes, but I think for the movie it was in the ’60s, and is today, it easily stands as one of the greatest movies ever.
Rating: 10/10
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