Poetry brought to life

Rating: 10/10 (23 April 2014)

Every once in a while you see a film that embeds itself beneath your skin. Whether it's the movie itself, or just happening to see that film at exactly the right time in your life. The Graduate for me, is one of those films.
The beauty of this film is how the mood and feelings of the main character dictate everything else. The lighting, sound, editing; everything is all about Benjamin and how he is relating to this world he lives in. When he feels suffocated by the world he is in and isolated from everything that surrounds him, we too feel it in the absolute silence the director allows. In fact, the most poignant moments of the film for me were when the character didn't speak at all. The blank look on his face tied in with music that so brilliantly conveyed everything going on inside him that he just could not get out said more about his character in a single scene than some movies can pull off through their entire course.
The plot itself mirrored the turmoil and confusion going on inside Benjamin. How indecisive and unsure he was about what he wanted to be and how he fit into the world. He wiles his time away with Mrs. Robinson (his feelings on this relationship can be summed up in the scene where his father asks him what he is doing and he responds, 'I'm drifting') while trying to find himself and understand just exactly who Benjamin is. When he happens across Elaine, he finally feels that rush that comes with having a sense of purpose. She is someone he can connect to and can feel like himself with. He has an identity with her as opposed to with her mother where he nothing more than a fake name. On that note, I adored the scene where he entered the hotel with Elaine, everybody calling him by this other name he has gone by for ages now; a reminder of how lost he has been with Mrs. Robinson. But this is taken away from him by Mrs. Robinson when she lies about what he has done and turns her family against him. His time drifting is now his undoing.
The ending scene was perfection because it wasn't a clear cut happy ending. Benjamin made his decision to go after Elaine; to claim his identity in her outside of Mrs. Robinson and his own family, but the expressions on their faces as soon as the adrenaline wears off speak of the fact that they don't quite have things figured out yet. The world is not a cut and dry place, and because of that, the ending of The Graduate could not be cut and dry.