426. The Graduate (1967)

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross

Director: Mike Nichols

Running Time: 106 mins

The Graduate is an American film about a college graduate who becomes involved in an affair with an older woman named Mrs. Robinson. However, complications arise after their affair ends, and he falls in love with her daughter.

This film was brilliantly entertaining to watch. Not only did it have a good quality of comedy throughout, it had an interesting and clever story, as well as one of the strangest central relationships I’ve seen in a film.

Starting with the story, it takes a very original and unorthodox slant. Although it is occasionally a little tough to watch at points, where scenes or dialogue may be going on a bit too long, despite its largely slow-paced and stationary plot, it was surprisingly fascinating and engaging to watch.

This was mainly because of the frankly bizarre telling of the relationship between Mrs. Robinson and Ben (the graduate). From the start, this film takes the exact opposite approach to what you would think (in terms of how the relationship starts), and is therefore slightly shocking, but mostly fascinating to watch.

The central character of Ben was also fantastically played by Dustin Hoffman. Starting out as a naïve, nervous and seemingly unaware ‘young man’, you can see him grow and mature as the story goes on very obviously, which was well done on the part of Hoffman.

I know I said that this film had a slow-paced story, and it did, but for the final 20 minutes, I was surprised yet again to see how it changed tack, and became a rapid-fire chase sequence, which was not only entertaining to watch, but also strangely exciting, as every second counted in this excellent finale.

Overall, I’ll give this an 8.2, because it was a fascinating, entertaining, well made, and very clever look at an unorthodox relationship that skips the generation gap.