A true "Fin de siècle" story symbolising the end, and the beginning, of an era.

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2007)

I am the same age as Ben Braddock the Dustin Hoffman character in The Graduate so when it first came out in 1967 it was in every way a must see film. In those distant days (and despite the fame of the 60s as an era of free love) sex was rather less a matter of fact presence in your teenage years than it is today. So the older woman fantasy which Benjamin lives for real was one that most of us shared. Sadly I didn't find a Mrs Robinson to teach me and entertain me, but wish that I had! "The Graduate" is a film about sex and love  but quite a lot else as well. It is a true "Fin de siècle" story. The seductiveness and enticing allure of Anne Bancroft as the forty-something Mrs Robinson is quite brilliantly portrayed by this most excellent of actresses. She manages to separate love and sex in the same way that Benjamin does. At no point is there anything to their relationship except physical gratification  sex as recreation. When Ben tries briefly to develop something more ("Let's talk") he is rebuffed. Mrs Robinson enjoys Benjamin and he enjoys her  but deep down they have contempt for one another. Mrs Robinson also has contempt for her husband - a dull, dim, drone of a man whose marriage to Mrs Robinson only happened because he impregnated her. No love there either.
For love we need to look at the character of Elaine Robinson  beautifully played by the young Katherine Ross. She is loved not only by Benjamin but also, and crucially, by her mother. In Mrs Robinson's sad and shallow life the only good thing is Elaine. So when Benjamin dates her and (almost) instantly hits it off with her Mrs Robinson is incandescently jealous. Benjamin, her toy boy, is going to desert her for her beloved daughter. It is not the loss of Benjamin as a stud that (one suspects) worries Mrs Robinson, but the loss of her daughter. There is always another potential lover available to replace Benjamin  but she only has one daughter.
The Graduate is also a revealing satire on the getting and spending society of California in the 1960s. There is money galore for the likes of the Braddocks and the Robinsons and this can be easily converted into possessions. Mr Braddock lets his guests know that Ben's diving suit cost $200 ($1200 in today's money) and his and Mr Robinson's house are vulgarly ostentatious. Ben is struggling with this conspicuous consumption and can't really be bothered to launch himself onto the gravy train  he'd rather lie in the pool and have fun with Mrs Robinson. Very Californian! The soundtrack is quite superb  not just the great Paul Simon songs but also the Dave Grusin instrumental tracks. "The Sounds of Silence" predates the film, but seems to be perfect for it. "And the people bowed and prayed. To the neon god they made". The "neon god" is the god of money, consumption, pretension and the certainty that, as a parent or an older person, you have the right to control others. That certainty spurs Mrs Robinson to forbid Ben to see Elaine and spurs the two Robinsons to try and force Elaine into a loveless marriage with Carl Smith  principally to spite Benjamin. That ultimately Benjamin and Elaine escape together is symbolic of the growing confidence that those of us who were of the baby boomer generation had to break free. We were the first generation not to automatically follow our parents' writ.
1968, the year after The Graduate appeared, was the pivotal year of the second half of the twentieth century. It was the year of the Prague spring, of the Tet offensive, of the famously photographed summary execution of a Viet Cong officer by Nguyen Ngoc Loan, of civil rights demonstrations across the USA, of Mai Lai, of the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, of "Hair", of Humanae Vitae  and of Richard Nixon's election. "The Graduate" can be seen both as the end of one era as well as the beginning of another. The era of conformity, formal clothing for university students, deferential regard for parents and so on disappeared as Benjamin Braddock and Elaine Robinson eventually did their own thing  as million of young people in the west began to do the same. I was one of those and I remember it well  it was fun, and, for me, a personal Mrs. Robinson might have made it perfect. But you can't have everything!