The Graduate

1: The movie, The Graduate, was directed by Mike Nichols and is based on the book by Charles Webb. The movie had positive reviews upon release and received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, and Best Adapted Screen Play.

 2 http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120348/stanley-kauffmann-reviews-mike-nichols-graduate

According to the review, at the time the movie pushed boundaries when it came to the bedroom scenes and the language used. The reviewer, Stanley Kauffmann, describes it as “daring, let alone opportunistic”.  The plot of the movie, as seen through Dustin Hoffman’s performance, is well executed. His character seems to be the type of person who clearly has no clue of what he wants to do with his life. He has parents and his parents' friends telling him what to do. Every time he tries to get away, he can’t. He tries to make good moral calls but fails when he has the affair with Mrs. Robinson. He then tries to redeem himself by coming clean with the woman he really wants to be with, her daughter. It sets up for an interesting story.

Stanley’s only criticism was camera placement.

3 My Review: The movie was ok. Personally, I thought that Dustin Hoffman’s performance was stale and the character he played seems to be too much of a pushover, although I can somewhat understand this because of the time period the movie was shot. The soundtrack of the movie made sense due to the songs and the clever placement of the lyrics in the song. At times it seemed that the same three songs were over used, leading me to dislike the movie all together. I agree with the critic’s thoughts on the camera placement, but to go even further, the transitions did not flow very well. At times, I was lost on the literal direction the film was going. The movement of the camera in reference to transitions was hard to follow.  Also, it could be that his artistic approach just completely went over my head, but the whole “focusing on a background object after something dramatic happened and the characters walk of screen” didn’t seem artistic and if it was supposed to emphasize something… it didn’t, for me at least.

The movie is watchable! But enjoyable? To each their own.

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