Spoiler Alert: Mrs. Robison was seducing him!
- SpoilerAlertBlog
- Jan 7, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 6, 2020
Movie: The Graduate
Rank: 17
Year: 1967
Director: Mike Nichols
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross
Please allow me to set the scene. Roughly a week into a cold, I am curled up under a blanket on my pink velvet couch with the lights off in my living room. Being mindful of when the Red Carpet starts for the Golden Globes, I fire up Netflix and search for The Graduate. After more deliberation than I would like to admit, this is the film I have chosen to kick off my year-long mission to watch all of AFI’s 100 Greatest Films of All Time.
A seemingly perfect choice to start this endeavor, The Graduate has embedded itself into American popular culture where many of the quotes and music live on today. While I had never watched the movie, I could sing along to those Simon & Garfunkel songs and was fully ready to hear the inquiring Benjamin Braddock worry about Mrs. Robinson’s seduction methods.
I don’t know what I expected, but the title and credits rolling over “Hello darkness, my old friend,” was not it.
I always assumed The Graduate would be a soapy mess of a horny young man bouncing between his girlfriend and her mom. Instead, I was met with a disillusioned and uncertain recent graduate confronted with a sexually aggressive, and might I add likely illegally persistent, attempt by Mrs. Robinson to take the newly back-in-town Ben as her secret boy toy.
"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?" -Ben Braddock, The Graduate
Please note, despite my use of the phrase “boy toy” and her assertion Ben is half her age, the real age difference between Dustin Hoffman (Ben) and Anne Bancroft (Mrs. Robinson) is a mere six years. Chalk this up to boyish charm and the help of aging makeup or the habit of Hollywood to unfairly relegate aging women to the roles of only mothers and wives, but Mrs. Robinson’s confrontation with old age and regrettable life decisions is being mulled over by a 36 year-old woman still likely in the prime of her life.
The beautiful cinematography serves as a hallmark of their affair, with innovative shots featured during this portion of the film more than any other. The jump cuts and rapid shifting angles of Mrs. Robinson’s first proposition mirror Ben’s erratic and confused reaction to her sordid offer. Mrs. Robinson first appearance at the Taft hotel by reflecting on the bar’s table top before shifting up mimics how upside down the whole arrangement is. The following montage shifts between scenes and locations, with shots showing Ben walking from his parents’ pool to the hotel bed, closing the hotel door to show his parents eating on the other side and swimming up in the pool onto Mrs. Robinson in bed. Time is passing and the ever-awkward Ben has settled into his new life of sexual rendezvouses and increasing apathy.
"Oh no, Mrs. Robinson. I think, I think you're the most attractive of all of my parents' friends. I mean that"
- Ben Braddock, The Graduate
Finally coerced by his parents and Mr. Robinson, Ben sees no other option than to take Elaine Robinson out on a date, much to the chagrin of her mother, Mrs. Robinson. I will admit I do not have much room to judge when it comes to driving skills, but his erratic weaving through traffic, even if to serve as a turn-off to Elaine, seems unnecessarily reckless. In what can only be described as a truly dick move, taking Elaine to a strip club to have the stripper’s pasty tassels swirling above her head, should have disqualified any forgiveness on her part. Yet, a mere apology and dinner at a drive-in seems to have endeared our feckless protagonist to the more deserving Elaine. Apparently a date sent from the heavens, Ben has deemed her his true love almost instantly.
Let’s have an aside about Mrs. Robinson. I can appreciate she is in a sexless marriage brought on by an unplanned pregnancy conceived in the backseat of a Ford and struggling with her identity with an unused art education, but she is not a very likable character. Rather than simply shooting her shot at a younger man, she serves more as a sexual predator whose affair is outed and in turn, claims rape. Her increasingly morally abhorrent behavior is a lot more serious than Shirley MacLaine’s saucy take on the pseudo-real life inspiration from Rumor has it… (2005) would insinuate.
Either way, as Ben spirals following the dissolution of his sexual relationship with Mrs. Robinson and seemingly puppy love with Elaine, he decides he will claim Elaine as his wife and embarks on a stalking endeavor near her college. After sorting out the rape situation, they discuss the wildly inappropriate decision to get married. This plan gets disrupted when Mr. Robinson, Elaine’s father, confronts Ben. Shout out to the type-cast Mr. Roper from Three’s Company for always playing the disapproving and suspicious landlord.
"It's like I was playing some kind of game, but the rules don't make any sense to me. They're being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up."
-Ben Braddock, The Graduate
In a fun traveling montage to break up the also ill-advised wedding of Elaine to Carl, a man from college who believes they would make a good team, Ben becomes dirtied and strung out. Arriving after the vows, his appearance still compels Elaine to scream out his name. Even if a fight didn’t ensue, we can all agree that wedding doomed their marriage much like Ross’ marriage to Emily in Friends. As they run onto the bus, their faces shift between joy to fright and his ultimate solemn face seems to set hers in a similar manner. I’m no couple's therapist, but some deep dives into their relationship feels warranted.
Overall, the film uses sound in some ingenious ways. In an early scene at his parents’ home, his birthday party chatter is replaced with the whirring oxygen tank of the scuba suit he is forced to use in the backyard pool in a scene conveying his feeling of drowning. On their date, Elaine and Ben’s conversation becomes muted as he closes the roof of his convertible. Clad in her wedding dress and wearing a ring, Elaine seemingly can’t hear the obvious screams of her family and new husband before yelling Ben’s name.
In today’s light, the movie, and I assume the novel, highlights some seedy experiences in young Ben’s life which would warrant a police investigation. I by no-means believe I have the end-all-be-all post-grad life experience, but I think I can safely assert his is atypical. This cast of characters isn’t all together likable, but their poor choices make for an enjoyable hour and forty-six minutes.
So I guess, in the end, here is to you Mrs. Robinson.
Post-script: Mr. Braddock is played by a younger Mr. Feeny, who in any logical thought process must have been younger at some point, but to me will always be later-middle aged to elderly educator shaping the young minds of Mr. Matthews and his, by all accounts good-hearted and well-meaning, friends and family.
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