A subtle, insightful, multi-layered satire

Rating: 8/10 (18 September 2005)

Who is Mrs. Robinson? The first time I saw this movie as an adolescent, I didn't ask myself this question. Early on, Mrs. Robinson was sexy and mysterious. I wanted Ben to sleep with her. Then I was ready to forget all about her when Ben met her daughter Elaine. I fell in love with Elaine, and from then on wanted Ben and Elaine to live happily ever after. I started to hate Mrs. Robinson, because she tried to keep them apart. At the end, (spoiler alert!) when the camera shows her silently cursing as Ben breaks up Elaine's shotgun wedding, I felt a vindictive pleasure.
It's different for me now. My mind fixes on the stilted hotel room "conversation" between Mrs. Robinson and Ben. She keeps Ben at arm's length with distant answers to his naive questions about her life. Ben doesn't see her face here, but we do. And we have a chance (one that I missed on my first viewing) to see much more clearly than Ben how much Mrs. Robinson is actually revealing about herself.
She married Mr. Robinson in an era before The Pill and legal abortion. They had sex in Mr. Robinson's Ford and the pregnant, future Mrs. Robinson had little choice. For the sake of petty bourgeois respectability, they got married, and Mrs. Robinson began playing the role assigned to her of wife, mother, and cocktail party attendee.
Mrs. Robinson tragically made a deal with her devil. She will make her husband breakfast every morning. She will smile graciously at social engagements with his business associates and their wives. She will drown her sorrows in alcohol. She will distract herself from her boredom by having an affair with young Benjamin--perhaps not her first. And if anything were to upset the uneasy balance of this, she may be expected to sacrifice her own daughter on the same altar (literally) of social expectations.
Elaine escapes her mother's fate. Mrs. Robinson screams, "It's too late!" as Elaine and Ben are fleeing the church, but Elaine answers, "Not for me!" Too bad nobody tells Mrs. Robinson that it's not too late for her, either.
The only problem with the film is Elaine's character. After Ben stupidly humiliates her at the burlesque club on their first date, we suddenly cut to the now happy couple chatting away at a burger joint. What happened in between? Why didn't Ben's cruel behavior end the date right there? The filmmakers don't seem to know. Elaine runs away with Ben at the end without ever mentioning that it might have hurt her when he broke up her family. It's another inexplicable, unearned forgiveness. What real woman acts like Elaine does in this movie? How could someone so flighty and spineless make the stand that Elaine does at the end of the movie? It's as if the filmmakers, like Ben, don't know how to behave themselves around a pretty girl.
I would understand if this ruins the movie for some viewers. I personally can forgive the filmmakers because, even if they don't understand Elaine, they understand Ben perfectly and show a surprising level of (accidental?) insight into Mrs. Robinson. These strengths, along with a whole series of unforgettable visual moments, help me to appreciate the film's satire and philosophy.
Director Mike Nichols has said that the last scene in the bus was more or less an accident. Bewilderen by Nichols' fierce directions, the actors gradually stopped laughing and started looking around blankly, not knowing what to do next. It was inspired for Nichols to decide to keep these reactions. By getting on that bus, Elaine and Ben made a thrilling getaway. But where are they going? They don't know. They're young and they still have a lot of things to figure out. Hence the stares. This ending alone earns this film "classic" status.
At their age, neither Elaine nor Ben is ready to make any sort of lifelong commitment, let alone the carefully calculated marriage and career commitments that their parents expect them to make. And they sense something artificial, something "plastic", about their world that they find abhorrent. That's the rebellious thread that so many viewers have identified with while watching the movie. Mrs. Robinson's tragedy is the role she reluctantly plays in propping up the institutions that Elaine and Ben rebel against. Mrs. Robinson would stand to gain a lot from the very same freedom that Elaine and Ben seek, but do not know how to find.