Tropic Sprockets / The Graduate (1967) 

By Ian Brockway

Mike Nichols’ “The Graduate” (1967) is a nearly perfect film. [Check Tropiccinema.com for showtimes and trailer.] Poignant and engrossing with bold cinematography by Robert Surtees, “The Graduate” is a stirring coming-of-age story that is wonderfully direct and uncynical. Even though it is created from another time 58 years ago, refreshingly, it holds its own.

Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) is a sheltered graduate from an upper class family who seemingly has everything. He is an awarded scholar and track star, returning home to celebrate his graduation.

Benjamin walks right into his party, and family and friends descend upon him like wolves. He is quickly smothered with attention and cannot think or breathe.

Mr. McGuire (Walter Brooke) corners Benjamin in conversation and utters the best known line in the film: “I just want to say one word to you. One word. Plastics.”

Benjamin becomes deeply anxious and worried about the expectations put upon him as an academic golden boy and retreats into passivity.

A friend of the family, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) is enamored with the young man and seduces him under the pretense of asking for a chauffeur.

Benjamin is too awkward to refuse.

Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) pressures Benjamin to date his daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross), but Mrs. Robinson Robinson grows increasingly harsh and manipulative and forbids Benjamin to date Elaine.

Hoffman in a milestone performance completely embodies the character Benjamin down to the most minute expressions. When overwhelmed, Hoffman utters a small claustrophobic whimper of discomfort that equals the great Gene Wilder.

In several scenes showing Benjamin alone wearing dark sunglasses, his tan body by a sparkling blue pool, Hoffman paves the way for a young Tom Cruise, noted for his shades decades later.

Benjamin feels he has no choice but to be a creep to Elaine and he takes her to a strip club.

Understandably, Elaine is devastated, but she still loves him.

The climactic chase scene featuring a beautiful red Alfa Romeo pulls on the heart and keeps one in suspense.

Wonderfully shot and edited to brilliantly portray a young man’s anxiety, the film creates a stunning collage of nerves. A sparkling pool is juxtaposed against Benjamin’s impassive face. Water against stone. Mrs. Robinson’s smoke-filled and fur-skinned body is half feline, half reptile, yet the look in her eye is all human. She is full of wistful regret.

The film is rich in symbolism. In a pivotal church scene, a huge cross becomes both a symbol of rebellion against the status quo and a weapon that clears the way for Benjamin and Elaine.

This is a three sided genre film of angst, love and suspense. It is a thrilling classic that set in motion “Harold and Maude” (1971) with its themes of isolation, mental health and the desire for rebellion. 

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