A 60's Classic

Rating: 8/10 (6 September 2010)

This is a 60's movie, so I have to begin by expressing appreciation for the 60's music. Three of the great Simon & Garfunkel songs are here: "The Sound of Silence," "Scarborough Fair" and, of course, "Mrs. Robinson." It's interesting, though, that that last song really isn't the central song of the movie - that would probably be "The Sound of Silence." Those songs alone made this an enjoyable movie to spend time with. Songs aside, though, this is also just a really good movie - a must see if you like movies from the 60's. It's a kind of coming of age story, replete with family drama, comedy and great performances.
Dustin Hoffman and Ann Bancroft are superb as the leads - Hoffman as the young Ben Braddock, just graduated from university and with no real idea where life is going to lead him, and Bancroft as the older Mrs. Robinson, a woman in a passionless marriage who seduces Ben. The seduction scenes are really quite funny. Hoffman did a great job portraying the awkwardness and uncertainty Ben felt as he found this woman, who has been a friend of his family forever from his perspective, suddenly looking to him for more than just friendship. There's a lot of sensitively funny material in the first hour of the movie, which largely revolves around this relationship: from the first seduction, to Ben renting a room for them, to the scene in which he insists that they have a conversation before "doing it." The dialogue was witty, and the performances completely believable. There's a superbly executed shift in genre (for lack of a better word) in the second hour, as Ben finds himself becoming interested in Mrs. Robinson's daughter Elaine (a really good supporting performance by Katharine Ross.) The movie takes on a dramatic feel here, as Ben's feelings for Elaine complicate and then end the affair with her mother, as the secret comes out and lies are told in an attempt to cover up. I've rarely seen a movie switch so seamlessly from light comedy to drama. It was pulled off without a hitch by director Mike Nichols. The question in the end becomes whether Ben can convince Elaine to continue their relationship after she learns about the affair with her mother, and there's some real uncertainty about that. The ending of the movie comes across in some ways as a bit cliché, although there's an openness to it as well as you wonder what awaits Elaine and Ben after all they've experienced.
From an era in which there was a lot of uncertainty about the future, this movie seems to encapsulate that feeling through a series of believable characters, whose own futures are left completely up in the air as the movie ends. Sometimes a movie leaving a lot of loose ends can be frustrating, but in this case it seemed completely appropriate to both the story and the times in which it was made.