04-06-2015, 01:45 PM
Last night I watched The Graduate. REALLY watched it. And, you know, once you get past all the iconic scenes ("Plastics", "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me" and "ELAINE! ELAINE!") you realize that Benjamin Braddock is actually just a skeevy little stalker.
I mean, seriously, the film was over for me once he decides, after about 10 minutes no less, that weepy ol' boring Elaine is his soulmate or something and he starts spying on her and barging onto buses and meet-ups with other men even in order to get close to her. Up until then though the story has been somewhat daring and unconventional, the most significant moment for me being when Benjamin, tired of the rote, conversationless sex, starts haranguing Mrs. Robinson (she's always "Mrs. Robinson") for info about her life.
She's bored and irritated, for the most part biting off one word answers during his "interrogation." But he eventually learns that she was an art major in college, and that an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and marriage derailed her life essentially. (Hey, it was the forties.) Anne Bancroft plays this scene beautifully. For a brief moment the imperious facade crumbles, and a look of profound loss shadows her face. You could say she's haunted, Havisham-like, only in this case by a groom that showed up instead of one that vamoosed.
![[Image: 28hne3a.jpg]](http://i58.tinypic.com/28hne3a.jpg)
I swear though, in those few illuminating seconds there's a whole other movie staring out from behind her eyes. And I'm burning to know more about Mrs. Robinson and her stalled life and what she REALLY thinks about the plastic/cocktail party/backyard barbecue milieux, with their golf pants and their too wide smiles and their stale bromides about getting on in the world.
But, alas, once Katharine Ross's flighty Elaine enters the picture there's an abrupt shift in the storytelling. It segues into a rather pedestrian story of a nervous guy getting the pretty girl, as a wistful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack underscores his increasingly manic exploits. By this point, Mrs. Robinson has been discarded and demonized. There's no longer any vulnerability leaking out at the edges. She's just one of the establishment villains now. And we're meant, I guess, to be rooting for Ben and Elaine as they theatrically bolt from middle class suburban assholery. Or something.
The film does at least have the decency in the end to imply that messy reality has boarded the getaway bus with them. You see it in their faces as elation slowly gives way to uncertainty and fearfulness. But you're still left gritting your teeth that the multi-layered, character-driven, anti-establishment story it could have been is spectacularly undone by having detoured into the most conventional of plots.
Any resemblance real or imagined blah blah blah...
I mean, seriously, the film was over for me once he decides, after about 10 minutes no less, that weepy ol' boring Elaine is his soulmate or something and he starts spying on her and barging onto buses and meet-ups with other men even in order to get close to her. Up until then though the story has been somewhat daring and unconventional, the most significant moment for me being when Benjamin, tired of the rote, conversationless sex, starts haranguing Mrs. Robinson (she's always "Mrs. Robinson") for info about her life.
She's bored and irritated, for the most part biting off one word answers during his "interrogation." But he eventually learns that she was an art major in college, and that an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and marriage derailed her life essentially. (Hey, it was the forties.) Anne Bancroft plays this scene beautifully. For a brief moment the imperious facade crumbles, and a look of profound loss shadows her face. You could say she's haunted, Havisham-like, only in this case by a groom that showed up instead of one that vamoosed.
I swear though, in those few illuminating seconds there's a whole other movie staring out from behind her eyes. And I'm burning to know more about Mrs. Robinson and her stalled life and what she REALLY thinks about the plastic/cocktail party/backyard barbecue milieux, with their golf pants and their too wide smiles and their stale bromides about getting on in the world.
But, alas, once Katharine Ross's flighty Elaine enters the picture there's an abrupt shift in the storytelling. It segues into a rather pedestrian story of a nervous guy getting the pretty girl, as a wistful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack underscores his increasingly manic exploits. By this point, Mrs. Robinson has been discarded and demonized. There's no longer any vulnerability leaking out at the edges. She's just one of the establishment villains now. And we're meant, I guess, to be rooting for Ben and Elaine as they theatrically bolt from middle class suburban assholery. Or something.
The film does at least have the decency in the end to imply that messy reality has boarded the getaway bus with them. You see it in their faces as elation slowly gives way to uncertainty and fearfulness. But you're still left gritting your teeth that the multi-layered, character-driven, anti-establishment story it could have been is spectacularly undone by having detoured into the most conventional of plots.
Any resemblance real or imagined blah blah blah...
OH PLEASE...