The Personal Recommendation Hall of Fame V: Comedy Edition

My most retained line from the film (because my sister and I used to shout it at each other) is "PUSH THE BUTTON, MAX!!!"

The Graduate, 1967

Recent college graduate Ben (Dustin Hoffman) returns home to live with his parents. His post-college malaise is shaken up a bit when old family friend Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) aggressively pursues a sexual relationship with him. Despite the affair, however, Ben remains emotionally detached. That is until Mrs. Robinson's daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross), enters the picture.

This film has long been one of those glaring omissions on the list of movies that a film buff is supposed to have watched early in discovering their passion for cinema, but that I had never got around to until this point. I often have a (unfounded, I must admit!) hesitation to watch films that have a certain degree of cultural saturation. "Plastics". "You're trying to seduce me". *bangs on large glass church window*.

But this was for the most part really great and an example of a movie that manages to use technical moves that are brilliant even as they call attention to themselves.

The movie-making on display is what I loved the most here, and on so many fronts. I loved the way that the film takes us right inside Ben's perspective, whether that's getting quick ,frantic glimpses of the nude Mrs. Robinson, literally limiting us to his point of view inside a scuba outfit, or showing characters in a darkened blur as he looks up at them from the pool. Then there's the editing, with moments like an exquisite cut from Ben jumping up onto a pool float and then seamlessly landing on top of Mrs. Robinson in bed. Finally, the camera is totally emotionally indulgent and it's great. Pans and zooms are used to obvious and excellent effect. A standout to me was a moment where Mrs. Robinson speaks to Ben, the shot beginning in close-up only to zoom out and out and out to reveal that she's in a corner far away from Ben, leaving her suddenly looking very small and vulnerable.

I also liked the acting and the character development. Hoffman does a great job of playing the subdued Ben, finding a way to give variation in his performance without ever going too big. Paired with the subjective camera, it's a fantastic combination of an actor's style and a film's style meshing perfectly. I'm thinking of the sequence where Ben takes Elaine to a strip club in order to humiliate her, and as he realizes how hurt she is, the scope of the camera suddenly ceases to include the body of the stripper, focusing instead on Elaine's face.

Bancroft is also great as Mrs. Robinson. It would be easy to hate her as a character, but we are given enough backstory and depth, and we get to see enough of her pain, that despite some really horrible actions on her part, there is sympathy for her. Mrs. Robinson is someone whose life went off track, and she carries an understandable regret for this, but also an anger at the younger generation.

The one character I felt was a bit underdeveloped was Elaine. While there's some really good rapport between Ross and Hoffman, especially in the scene where they go on their first date, I never totally got her. We see that her fiance's friends speak very crudely about her, and her fiance is known as the "make-out king." I could see Elaine being cowed into not seeing Ben. But being cowed into marrying Carl? It somehow didn't make sense to me. She's in college (or graduate school), so what's the rush? I know that she's a bit soft-spoken at times, but the wedding thing felt more like plot convenience than something the character would actually do. She mostly feels like she exists to be the center of a power tug-of-war between Ben and Mrs. Robinson.

I also felt myself wondering about Bancroft as the "older woman", and she's only like 6 years older than Hoffman! (And only 9 years older than her "daughter" LOL!). I read a piece of trivia that was like "Oh, Hoffman is so boyish and Bancroft is so aged that it works!", but for me the age difference didn't feel real. It wasn't a problem because the acting was so solid, but it did make me laugh a bit.

This was a real delight to watch. Funny, and so interesting from a technical point of view.

Funny story about the time I went with my brother to watch Hear No Evil, See No Evil at the theatre in Tallahassee Florida.

About halfway through, the film flipped itself upside down and continued on for about five minutes before they stopped it. After waiting a few minutes, they announced they had to offer refunds or tickets to another movie that same day.

I think we chose tickets to another movie that same day.

OMG I never seen that happen in a theater.

Have you seen any other comedies with Pryor and Wilder? I'm wondering if I seen check out more of their stuff.

I have not, but I really should eventually. When I did eventually get around to revisiting this, it wasn’t very good.

It was the only pairing of the two that I've seen...though I know they made some real received comedies together.