The Graduate

Rating: Null/10 (10 May 2010)

The Graduate was directed by Mike Nichols in 1967. It wasn't necessarily my favorite movie. However, the Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross were very convincing in their roles. The setting and locations were pretty diverse.
One of the main issues in the movie was the affair of Ben (Hoffman) and Mrs. Robinson (Bancroft). He was in love with her daughter, she was old enough to be his mother. I thought the "intro" scene of the affair when Mrs. Robinson had Ben come to the house while she tried to seduce him had a very unique shot. She was positioned in a way where her legs were propped up, and he could be seen in a shot through her legs fending off her verbal advances.
I felt the characters portrayed a realistic storyline. The scene where he raced to the wedding to stop Elaine from getting married was well done. Mrs. Robinson was determined to stop them from being together. He was determined for he and Elaine to be together. Bancroft played a very cool and controlled character. I thought her demeanor as she was sitting in the church was as though, "I have succeeded and won keeping them apart." The final scene of Ben desperately trying to stop the wedding and the camera angles of Elaine's mother, father and "husband" added a bit of humor to the activity that was leading up. In a very brief moment, we go from seeing desperate Ben pounding on the windows, to a quick fight scene of Ben and Elaine running off and blocking everyone inside the church using the cross as a barrier and then the two of them running off to hop on the bus.