Graduate (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

San Francisco Chronicle 9 of 10
When The Graduate was released in 1967, it was a new kind of picture, part of a movement of dry-humored, hip, intelligent, anti-Establishment, slightly sneering films that would dominate the late '60s and 1970s... Oddly enough, as iconoclastic and youth-oriented as The Graduate was, one of the reasons it still holds up so well... is that the specific troubles of the late '60s are not actually mentioned in The Graduate. Our anti-hero Benjamin (the 29-year-old Dustin Hoffman in his first starring film role) is a 20-year-old in silent rebellion against the cocktail-hour-and-fancy-car circuit that is his parents' Los Angeles social life... Benjamin's dissatisfaction is never the heart of the movie because Benjamin is little more than a cipher. We root for him only because his confusion and weakness happen to pit him against the superficiality of his wealthy background, not because there is anything intrinsically heroic or admirable about him. Benjamin, in fact, is kind of a jerk... But what's most fun is a brilliant, nasty, sad, defiant and overtly sexual performance by Anne Bancroft in her prime as Mrs. Robinson, the wife of Benjamin's father's law partner. (The part was first offered to Doris Day, who was offended, and Patricia Neal, who was ill.) Bancroft's comic seduction of the virginal Benjamin, a guy so nerdy that you can hardly believe even a sex-starved Mrs. Robinson could find him attractive, is one of the best acted and directed film sequences of the last 30 years. Bancroft, who is only seven years Hoffman's senior, has a brittle beauty that she wields like a club. Her sexual authority is a marvel, partly because such self-confidence is, to this day, rarely portrayed on screen in women who aren't street walkers. Bancroft's matter-of-fact sexuality was a nice counterpoint, too, to the noisy newfound sexual freedom of the thriving rock 'n' roll culture. It turns out that even suburban moms have libidos... The Graduate famously used Simon and Garfunkel songs, including "Scarborough Fair" and "The Sounds of Silence," giving the film a lyrical tone that is especially jarring against the cynical plot about not terribly nice people. I hadn't remembered that only the instrumental part of Paul Simon's "Mrs. Robinson" was heard on the soundtrack. After the film's successful release, Nichols persuaded Simon to write the actual song - which would become a huge hit - as a marketing tool. - Barbara Shulgasser
 
Boxoffice Magazine 9 of 10
Described as a "satire on the Los Angelesization of the world," The Graduate is essentially a sex comedy concerned with an incredibly naive college graduate, who [has an affair] with the wife of his parents' best friend, only to fall in love with the woman's daughter. As Nichols' second directorial chore, the film resembles a series of cinematic Mike Nichols-Elaine May sketches in the earlier part, slow[ly] moving toward a fantastic and heart-rending finale, the likes of which should have audiences jumping with joy, laughter and tears. The Calder Willingham-Buck Henry screenplay has some traces of unpleasantness and a plethora of sharp-edged digs at contemporary society. Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft both survive initial hurdles of miscasting to give bravura performances, and lovely Katharine Ross couldn't be more appealing as the daughter. Robert Surtees' excellent Technicolor-Panavision cinematography is a standout feature. There is also the allure of the soundtrack of Top 40 Simon and Garfunkel songs.
 
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