The Graduate (1967)
Runtime: 2 hrs 6 mins
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, Murray Hamilton, William Daniels
Producer: Lawrence Turman
Screenwriter: Calder Willingham, Buck Henry
Story: Charles Webb
Composer: Dave Grusin
Buy It On DVD
Reviews
Rather a shame it's so often mistaken for a statement about something beyond the milk-fed adolescent blues.
Mike Nichols' seminal film at once reflected the generation gap and also widened it, giving youths a clear voice, indigenous music, villains (all adults), and a sympathtic anti-hero, played to perfection by Dustin Hoffman in a career-making turn.
I couldn't get past the fact what a tool Benjamin Braddock was.
...plastics, an apt description for the artificial people and attitudes around him.
Nichols takes an ad hoc approach to comic irony and the movie seems to have been enshrined by American audiences because each moment in isolation "works," no matter that they tend to cancel each other out.
The film itself is very broken-backed, partly because Anne Bancroft's performance as the mother carries so much more weight than Katharine Ross' as the daughter, partly because Nichols couldn't decide whether he was making a social satire or a farce.
All the indie imitators that have come later still can't touch this hilarious and biting classic.
A rare movie that captures a societal zeitgeist with humor, drama and biting satire.
The post-college burnout feeling that continues to resonate with audiences today. A comedy of tragedy, in which a man's youthful idealism is dealt its inevitable deathblow.
Hoffman may be a trifle too old for the role, but the movie's still amazing.
They don't make 'em much better than this (or Anne Bancroft's unforgettable Mrs. Robinson).
It launched a type of film that is with us even today. Think not? Look at the work of David O. Russell and Wes Anderson and think again.
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