Directed by Mike Nichols (Regarding Henry, Closer, Charlie Wilson’s War)

Starring Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross

Synopsis: “Recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock is trapped into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, who happens to be the wife of his father’s business partner and then finds himself falling in love with her teenage daughter, Elaine.”

Though I have seen this movie in bits and pieces over the years, this was the first time I’ve seen it in its entirety. It felt good to finally see something that has been referenced and parodied so many times. I read an interview with Wes Anderson a few months ago where he said that this movie has been one of his biggest influences, and he always finds himself referencing it. I see this connection pretty clearly in retrospect. Though Anderson’s films, which I love, come across as much more detached and artificial than this film.

It would be weird for me to read the novel that this movie was based on because the film is so “cinematic” in the way that the plot unravels. The subjective experience that you get from the use of sound, music, and editing really makes you “feel” this story. And without this immersion of the viewer into the psyche of Ben Braddock I don’t think this film would work. The story, itself, is pretty strange. I can see how it inspired a whole generation of romantic-comedies, but when you think about it, the whole premise is downright creepy.  The problem is that a lot of the copy-cat movies to follow do not really throw the viewer into the story the way this film does so their stories come off as contrived and overly sentimental. This movie is “romantic” in a way, but there is definitely a deeper current of… I’m not sure the word for it (which I suppose is partially my point). The word, or notion, that I am trying to get at is summed up in one of the final shots of the movie though, where the young couple, seated at the back of a bus, laugh from the joy of finally being together, then their smiles fade as they pause for a moment to contemplate the road that lies ahead…

9/10