Standard-issue 1960s coming-of-age movie, and one of the worst of its breed

Rating: 3/10 (8 November 2014)

99.44 percent of the reviews for this movie read like they were written for "Appreciation of Cinema 101" class at university. Here's one that's not.
The nice way to put this is, "The Graduate overpromises and underdelivers."
The more direct way? "This movie is God-awful. No one should watch it."
We can go on and on about existential angst, dialectic materialism and unique camera angles all day long, but none of those things can change the fact the movie focuses on one of the most annoying people ever to grace the silver screen, Benjamin Braddock. Halfway through the movie you'll scream "get a job, you lazy bum" so loud your neighbors will hear. This guy's worse than Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield, and I didn't know that was possible until I saw The Graduate.
Where do we begin? Ben gets bullied at every turn. He gets bullied into sex with his dad's business partner's wife. The whole "scuba diver" scene was one long period of bullying. Mrs. Robinson bullies him when he hooks up with her daughter, then lies about the nature of their relationship to drive them apart. He probably also gets bullied into acquiring a cigarette habit.
The sex is totally unsatisfying - it's clear the movie makers were celebrating the end of the Hays Code by throwing all the nasty things you couldn't do before into their picture...but being able to put drinking, smoking and nookie into a movie doesn't necessarily mean you know HOW to do it. A trip to the foreign theater downtown for an afternoon of French flicks would have been useful.
Oh, and the music! It's like.."gee guys, here's a boring part, let's jam another irrelevant Simon and Garfunkel song in here!"
Take my advice, young ones: Stick to Breakfast at Tiffany's.