An excellent, excellent movie.

Rating: 8/10 (12 December 2009)

I have seen this movie several times, and the story is something that still hits true today. There have seen several films made since The Graduate that have had the same story line, with a man falling in love with an older woman and then her daughter, but none have done it as well as The Graduate. Dustin Hoffman did an excellent job for his first above the title debut and he really makes you feel for his character and everything that he is going through. Anne Bancroft was great as Mrs. Robinson, and she really made the viewer believe that she was a much older woman pining for Hoffman's Ben Braddock, even though in actuality Hoffman is only six years younger than Bancroft. Katharine Ross did well as Mrs. Robinson's daughter, Elaine, who Braddock eventually fell in love with, but her character is nowhere near as iconic as Bancroft's and Hoffman's. While I absolutely adore the very last scene, the wedding scene, and the scene when Ben is underwater so he can deliberately not pay attention to what his parents and their friends are saying are definitely a few of my favorite scenes. Director Mike Nichols was able to make this film amazing and shock people with the affair (even though by today's standards, this is normal) due to the end of the Hays Code. And one cannot forget the soundtrack done completely by Simon and Garfunkel, that alone made the movie even more watchable.