Still Lessons To Be Learned in the "Graduate"

Movie Review #13: The Graduate, 1967

I continue to be amazed by the stories in these wonderful movies that I've been watching from AFI's 100 Movies list.

Although I'm sure you've all watched The Graduate before, I had not. I only thought I knew it. After all, it's a well known, classic film. Why wouldn't I think I know it?

Besides the obvious things like the interesting camera angles...how they were used to help exaggerate the Dustin Hoffman character's alienation from his parent's world and his need to discover himself...and of course the controversial subject matter, this movie spoke to that restless part of me who wants to be her own person, breaking the mold and stepping outside of society's norms to be my own person, thoughts and all. The scene in the movie that illustrated this the most for me is when Hoffman first enters the hotel and is trying to decide what to do. There is a scene where he ends up holding the door for a rather long string of white-haired ladies and their dutiful husbands followed by a group of younger couples going the opposite direction. So, he doesn't seem to fit with the old or the new...he's somewhere in between.

Overall, I am not a big fan of movies from the 1960s, but this one is a must see for classic movie lovers. It has great music too.

On a side note, this is the second movie in a row that one of the characters has advised us to "invest in plastics...it's the future!" maybe they are trying to tell us something!