Graduate (Blu-ray) (1967)

Chicago Sun-Times
"...[Bancroft] is a great beauty....To watch it today is like opening a time capsule..." 03/28/1997 p.31

USA Today
"...[A] mellowed-out great movie..." 11/13/1992 p.3D

Premiere
"[T]hanks to the perfectly cast Bancroft, Mrs. Robinson not only became the archetype for the older woman as seductress, but also the source of distraction for many an adolescent male." 04/01/2004 p.64

Uncut
"Mike Nichols' classic is as fresh, perceptive and witty as it was in 1967." 08/01/2000 p.124

Entertainment Weekly
"The hit ages like wine and should speak just as eloquently to disaffected grads in the 21st century." -- Grade: A- 05/12/2006 p.64

Ultimate DVD
5 stars out of 5 -- "[A] breakthrough....Nichols's stylishly constructed film still feels fresh today..." 11/23/2007 p.111

The Onion A.V. Club 10 of 10
Returning from college somewhere in the unspecified "out East," Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin Braddock lands in sunny California and immediately enters a near-catatonic state. At a welcome-back party, his parents and their friends toast his achievements without really understanding them, and he drifts from room to room to avoid a noisy, boozy bunch who try to fill his head with nonsense about plastics and his possible bright future in them. But he doesn't want to be in plastics, even though he doesn't know what he does want. Then someone decides for him: Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson...An unexpected smash in 1967, The Graduate found a receptive audience among Baby Boomers for its depiction of generations divided more by a gulf than a gap. It's grounded in the world of '60s California but not stuck there, which is why it keeps getting rediscovered by subsequent generations as it's dragged out for one anniversary after another. In his breakthrough role, Hoffman captures the way youthful alienation can make one emotion crash into another as excitement becomes depression becomes rage. It's a timeless performance, outdone only by Bancroft, who transforms what could be a wicked-stepmother role by finding untold depths of disappointment. In her twisted way, Bancroft is just as sympathetic as Hoffman...Director Mike Nichols lets the film unfold in unbroken takes of long, awkward exchanges that give way to highly stylized moments and time-compressing montages set to songs by Simon And Garfunkel. The disparate approaches shouldn't work together, but the film thrives on its contradictions. Nichols lets a melancholy haze settle, then lifts it for a finale so rousing that it's almost possible to miss that the hero's as confused and adrift as ever, even though he isn't alone any more. - Keith Phipps
 
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
"The Graduate," the funniest American comedy of the year, is inspired by the free spirit which the young British directors have brought into their movies. It is funny, not because of sight gags and punch lines and other tired rubbish, but because it has a point of view. That is to say, it is against something. Comedy is naturally subversive, no matter what Doris Day thinks...Most Hollywood comedies have non-movie assumptions built into them. One of the most persistent is that movie characters have to react to funny events in the same way that stage actors do. So we get Jerry Lewis mugging. But in the direct style of new British directors, the audience is the target of the joke, and the funny events do not happen in the movie -- they are the movie...This is outrageous material, but it works in "The Graduate" because it is handled in a straightforward manner. Dustin Hoffman is so painfully awkward and ethical that we are forced to admit we would act pretty much as he does, even in his most extreme moments. Anne Bancroft, in a tricky role, is magnificently sexy, shrewish, and self-possessed enough to make the seduction convincing...Miss Ross, a newcomer previously seen in "Games," not only creates a character with depth and honesty, but is so attractive that now we know how Ann-Margret would have looked if she had turned out better...Nichols stays on top of his material. He never pauses to make sure we're getting the point. He never explains for the slow-witted. He never apologizes. His only flaw, I believe, is the introduction of limp, wordy Simon and Garfunkel songs and arty camera work to suggest the passage of time between major scenes. Otherwise, "The Graduate" is a success and Benjamin's acute honesty and embarrassment are so accurately drawn that we hardly know whether to laugh or to look inside ourselves. - Roger Ebert