Weird. Irritating. Unfunny

Rating: 2/10 (26 December 2015)

Yeah, well.
This is one of those rare but unavoidable instances where critics (especially Roger Ebert) and audience together vehemently love a movie and I vehemently abhor it (another one was 'The Big Lebowski'. I know, crazy right?)
Well, what can I say? I found The Graduate to be irritatingly unfunny and mind-numbingly boring. And weird too. Now, I am all for boring and weird (I loved 2001: A Space Odyssey), but this was a little too much.
Let's start with 10 stars.
->Shoddily/Weirdly Written Characters
a. Dustin Hoffman's character 'Benjamin' is supposed to be very smart and reasonably rational (in accordance with his college accomplishments, as declared by his parents in the beginning of the movie). But each scene reveals him to be an Idiot and a douche-bag. His character acts upon random emotions, is careless, fearful, shy, inconsiderate, lacks basic reasoning ability, gets infatuated with Katherine's Character, then stalks her, all the while worrying about his future but not doing anything about it.
All through the film he repeats a same pattern: Act upon impulse, worsen the situation, then apologize profusely for his action. Rinse and repeat.
Now I am all OK with dumb characters (as long as it's a comedy film), but I found it impossible to relate to 'Benjamin' He was just a little too dumb for a supposedly-smart guy, not to mention a little hard of hearing too - it caused cognitive dissonance. And he has sex with the hottie Anne Bancroft (more on her later) with the lights off! Are you serious? 2 stars deducted. 8 remaining
b. Katharine Ross' character is no different. She is the female version of Benjamin. Shown to be attending Berkeley (so you assume she has a well built top floor) but is stupid to the core. Any reasonable girl would have instantly rejected a boy who takes her to a strip club for the first date. But not her. After a profuse apology and an non-consensual kiss by Benjamin, she is all fine and dandy. Even falls in love with him (why? because he is the main character?) and then agrees to his marriage plan (there is no actual proposal shown) without any thought or consideration. What a stupid girl. 2 stars deducted. 6 remaining
c. Minor characters are also weird. Like Katherine's dad, who is unconvincingly insistent on making it happen between Benjamin and Elaine (Katherine's Character). Like Benjamin, he is hard of hearing. So, he always, pours Benjamin Scotch when he asks for Bourbon. Friend's of Benjamin's parents declare how proud they are of his accomplishments in the first scene which strikes a little too unrealistic. Now I am from India, where unless you take your family out of poverty, it is rare to hear those words even from your Parents. But I have a funny feeling that this (friend's declaring their pride to be a friend of parents of an accomplished boy) does not occur anywhere, even when they want to fake it. 1 star deducted. 5 remaining.
->Weird and unconvincing scenes. There are many: Church scene, strip club scene, college scene, every other scene. 2 stars deducted. 3 remaining.
->Stupid and Weird music. I found myself wanting to punch my laptop every time they played the 'bla, bla, bla, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and thyme, bla bla bla' song. And to my misfortune, they played it just too many times. 2 stars deducted. 1 star remaining.
-> Pointless Cinematography and editing. Like the scene where he turns his head to see nude Mrs. Robinson. I know they wanted to emphasize it. But it doesn't work. The scuba dive suit scene. The same. The changing background scene where they show Benjamin to be living a normal life and have sex with Mrs. Robinson. Seems superfluous. The scene where he strolls into Berkeley seemed too long. God, there are many scenes which I hated. 1 stars deducted. 0 stars remaining.
The good. 1. Anne Bancroft's character Mrs. Robinson. She played it so well - the quintessential confident MILF. I almost became a fan of her. She is the reason I survived through the movie. 1 star added.
2. Dustin Hoffman's acting. Again, superb performance by him too. Played the stupid, confused character well. 1 star added.
Overall rating: 2 stars.
I didn't like it, but I didn't regret seeing it. But you are not me. You may like it. May even become your favorite. Just watch it so that you don't regret.