Review: Quartet (2012)

* * *
Director: Dustin Hoffman
Starring: Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly

Quartet, the directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman, is the sort of gentle, inoffensive movie that manages to be as charming and entertaining as it is conventional. The narrative follows familiar beats and offers no surprises, but if the film is predictable, it’s at least well put together – the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. Coming from the same mold, it will probably remind many viewers of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, another recent film about British retirees that was somewhat slight, but no less entertaining for it.

The Best Picture Countdown #61: Rain Man (1988)

Director: Barry Levinson
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise

I must admit, I’m not a huge fan of Rain Man. I think it’s too slick, too shiny, too “Hollywood,” for me to really sink into it and invest myself in the story and characters. I can see the appeal, certainly, and I think that the film has moments of greatness but ultimately it has never really reached me on an emotional level. Plus, it bested the absolutely exquisite Dangerous Liaisons for Best Picture and, really, there’s just no forgiving that.

Rain Man begins as the story of a young hustler named Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise), who is one of those guys who can charm anyone, sell anything, take any shortcut, and is destined to become a master of the universe. When his father dies, Charlie is left nothing but a Buick Roadmaster and some prize rose bushes, while an undisclosed beneficiary receives a $3 million trust fund. Charlie does some investigating and learns that the beneficiary is Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), the brother he never knew he had. Raymond is autistic and has been living in an institution since Charlie was a kid, which throws Charlie for an even bigger loop.

Charlie takes Raymond out of the institution and embarks on a road trip with him to Los Angeles, where Charlie will meet with lawyers in the hopes of getting some of the money Raymond was left for himself. The trip is fraught with tension due to Charlie’s frustrations regarding Charlie’s limitations, and his behaviour towards his brother ultimately causes problems between him and his girlfriend (Valeria Golino). Eventually Charlie finds a way to turn Raymond’s peculiarities to his advantage, exploiting his brother’s photographic memory by having him count card in Las Vegas. However, though his initial instincts are to use Raymond to his advantage, Charlie does come to love him and, miracle of miracles, to put Raymond’s needs ahead of his own desires.

Hoffman won his second Best Actor Oscar for this film and delivers a very good performance that never crosses over the line and into parody. An actor could easily go over the top with a character like Raymond, playing the tics rather than the man, or slip into playing him in an overly technical way that suppresses the humanity at the character’s core. Hoffman doesn’t do either and, given how difficult it is for Raymond to communicate his feelings, it’s amazing how emotionally resonant the performance is. That being said, the unsung hero of the piece is Cruise. Charlie begins the film as the typical Cruisian golden boy charmer but gradually gains character as the story proceeds, discovering a capacity for kindness and compassion heretofore unknown. He holds his own with Hoffman, delivering an effective performance that nicely complements that of his co-star.

Written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass and directed by Barry Levinson (all of whom would win Oscars for this film), Rain Man is a film that is very aware of how to work the audience (the film itself has a bit in common with Charlie that way). It’s funny in an easy and kind of obvious way with much of the humour stemming from Raymond’s fixation on things like the “Who’s on First?” exchange, and Charlie’s irritation with those things. It also knows when to pull back from the humour, switching gears to provide the moving moments that set up the story’s heart warming conclusion. I’m not saying that any of this is necessarily bad - Rain Man hits all the notes you would expect it to hit, but it plays them with a fair amount of skill – just that I don’t find it to be terribly ambitious. No moulds are being broken here and there are no real surprises buried anywhere between the opening and closing credits, but Rain Man seems content to be what it is and within those limitations, it’s a success. It’s a solidly entertaining film, even if it falls short of greatness.

The Best Picture Countdown #52: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

Director: Robert Benton
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Justin Henry, Meryl Streep

You probably couldn’t make a movie about divorce and custody issues today that is as straight forward as Robert Benton’s Kramer vs. Kramer. This very well-crafted story, adapted from a novel by Avery Corman, never descends to the level of melodrama but instead survives on the pure drama of an ordinary situation. It’s a family drama that is never schmaltzy, a character-driven film anchored by terrific performances from Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

Kramer vs. Kramer is the story of a failed marriage and its fallout. The husband is Ted Kramer (Hoffman), an ad exec whose life is all work until his wife Joanna (Streep) leaves him. Joanna goes away to find herself, leaving Ted to take care of their son, Billy (Justin Henry), by himself in a household that is at first chaotic, but eventually settles into a new routine. Though there is much anger in the house at first stemming from the fact that Ted’s work is suffering as a result of his increased responsibilities at home and from Billy missing his mother, father and son come to form a bond that allows them to create a new life together in Joanna’s absence.

Ted also forms a bond with Margaret (Jane Alexander), a neighbour who is also a single parent and who had encouraged Joanna to leave Ted if she wasn’t happy. As things begin to level out, Margaret sees the change in Ted and the way that he parents, but her attempt to express that falls on deaf ears when Joanna returns and fights Ted for custody of Billy. The battle quickly gets nasty as each gets torn to shreds by the other’s lawyer, eventually ending with Joanna being awarded custody. Since he doesn’t want Billy to have to testify, Ted decides not to appeal the decision and puts on a brave face for his son’s sake. However, when the day comes for Joanna to take Billy, she has a change of heart, realizing that he’s already where he belongs.

Kramer vs. Kramer proceeds in a very intelligent way and is incredibly in tune with its characters. There are moments of high drama – such as the fight between Ted and Billy over ice cream when Billy tells Ted that he hates him and a frustrated Ted replies, “I hate you back, you little shit!”; or the scene in which Billy falls off the jungle gym and Ted runs through traffic carrying him to get him to the hospital – but these moments are carefully calibrated so that they don’t reach the exaggerated level of melodrama. These scenes have such great impact because they feel so authentic and because the actors give such naturalistic performances. Hoffman won the first of his two Best Actor Oscars for this film and though Ted Kramer may not be as memorable a character as Ratso Rizzo, Dorothy Michaels, or Raymond Babbitt, it’s a testament to Hoffman’s skill as an actor that he can make this totally average guy dealing with average problems so compelling. Similarly, though Streep’s screen time is minimal, the impression she makes in this film is lasting. That final scene between their characters, when both have reached a point where they can and do put Billy first, is really extraordinary.

Kramer vs. Kramer is an interesting film not only for the strength of its performances, but also because it was made at a time when cultural notions about gender and parenting were shifting. The film reflects both the traditional line of thinking about the mother as the natural nurturer by having Joanna win the custody battle, but it also very effectively challenges the idea that the father can’t be the nurturer through its exploration of Ted and Billy's relationship. It takes this subject very seriously and it explores it in a full and ultimately very balanced way. If you’ve never seen Kramer vs. Kramer, I highly recommend it because it still holds up really well.

The Best Picture Countdown #42: Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Note: this post is modified from a previously published post

Director: John Schlessinger
Starring: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman

There’s no doubt that Midnight Cowboy is a watershed film, one of several that signalled a new direction in mainstream American cinema. Its acceptance by AMPAS set the stage for the series of dark, gritty films that would dominate the Best Picture race over the next decade; films that took chances and were willing to risk not being “crowd pleasers.” That being said, Midnight Cowboy is nevertheless a film that is exactly as unsuccessful as it is successful, as timid as it is brave.

The story of Midnight Cowboy is no doubt familiar even to those who have not seen it. It centers on Joe Buck (Jon Voight), a Texan who comes to New York to make a career for himself as an escort for lonely, rich women. From beginning to end, he looks entirely out of place in this setting, striding through the streets in his fringed coat and cowboy hat, looking entirely too earnest, wearing his gullibility on his sleeve. Joe’s a big guy but you worry about him anyway because he looks like such an easy target. One of his first “clients” turns out to be a prostitute herself and Joe ends up paying her from his little store of cash. Later still, he’ll be duped again, this time by a lowlife named Ratso (Dustin Hoffman), who sends him to the apartment of an evangelist who tries to make Joe repent.

Joe catches up with Ratso eventually but, instead of exacting revenge on him, agrees to let him become his “manager.” Ratso’s reasoning is simple: Joe has the looks, Ratso has the brains. However, even with Ratso’s ability to scam, things continue to look grim for both men. They hole up together in an abandoned building, fighting against cold, hunger and the inevitability of finding themselves thrown out. These scenes are the best in the film, imbued with an ugly, unflinching realism that makes this movie different from any other. Hoffman’s sickly looking Ratso and Voight’s increasingly deflated and downtrodden Joe fit in this setting and the film would be better if it followed through on the promise of this aspect of the story and allowed itself to be an outright, uncompromising tragedy.

Midnight Cowboy has a few flaws which, in and of themselves, could be surmountable but taken all together present a real problem to the film as a whole. The flashback scenes which detail both Joe’s childhood and an attack on him and a girlfriend in Texas are intrusive and clumsy. These scenes suggest much more than they illuminate and given that the film ended up with an X rating anyway, Schlessinger should have just gone for it and addressed the events in a direct way rather than washing them in ambiguity. Connected to this is the problem the film seems to have in dealing with its homosexual themes. Much has been said and written over the years about the relationship between Joe and Ratso which does, at times, seem almost marital, though I’ve always felt that it was rather one-sided with Ratso lusting for Joe and Joe accepting it because Ratso is more or less harmless. It’s a fascinating relationship, but the film seems to want to look away from this aspect of it as much as possible. Further, there’s a scene where Joe is with a John and turns violent with him and it seems so out-of-character that it disrupts the flow of the film.

There are a number of scenes which either don’t fit or just don’t work. One of them is the scene with the evangelist and another is the sequence which finds Joe and Ratso at a party. The whole feeling of this sequence is out of step with the greater part of the story and Joe and Ratso’s inclusion at the party ignores a fundamental fact about their characters: they’re outsiders. The essence of these characters is that they exist on the very fringes of society and to have them in a situation where they’re not only invited but also accepted by these other people undermines their story.

While I think that Schlessinger is ultimately misguided and too timid in his direction, the film does have two things strongly in its favour: the performances by Voight and Hoffman. I think that this is Hoffman’s finest performance, playing this character who could easily have crossed over the line to become a caricature, but Hoffman keeps him so grounded that he could slip off the screen and disappear into the streets. Voight’s role isn’t as flashy, but his performance is solid and assured and complements Hoffman’s nicely. These two actors in these two roles are the reason to see the film.

Oscarstravaganza: All The President's Men

* * * *

Winner: Best Sound, 1976
Director: Alan J. Pakula
Starring: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards

Every once in a while I see a film that makes me understand why people often say that they miss the days when movies were made for adults. All The President's Men, based on the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is a movie for adults, one that doesn't punctuate it's story with violence or sex, but relies solely on its ability to engage with the audience on an intellectual level. It's a refreshing movie - even 34 years later.

The film is kicked off with the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Washington Post reporter Woodward (Robert Redford) is sent to court to cover the arraignment of the five men arrested at Watergate and quickly comes to believe that there's something bigger going on. His colleague Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) also thinks that something is being covered up and manages to get himself on the story as well. There is tension between the two men at first, stemming largely from Bernstein's unsolicited help in punching up Woodward's copy, but they quickly learn to work together and their styles end up balancing each other out. Woodward's ability to finesse and Bernstein's ability to get to people who are reluctant to see him (he is nothing if not tenacious and just a little bit sneaky) are both valuable assets that pay off big time.

For a while the story seems to be going nowhere. Their boss, Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards), threatens to kill it unless they can put the disparate elements they've gathered together into a cohesive narrative, others argue that they don't have the experience to cover it, and many seem to think that there's no story at all. The Post is dangerously close to becoming a joke in journalistic circles, which in turn prompts Bradlee to dig in his heels, standing behind his reporters even as he worries that they might not be able to pull it off and show the government's level of involvement in the scandal. Woodward and Bernstein persist, putting the pieces together with the help of Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook), and writing a story that would forever change the face of American politics.

The end results of Watergate are well known and the film itself doesn't really dwell on the consequences of the story. Instead it focuses on how the story is put together and manages to construct itself in a way that is exciting even when things aren't really moving forward. Woodward and Bernstein spend a lot of time chasing down false leads, getting doors slammed in their faces, and being given the run-around over the phone, but director Alan J. Pakula is able to convey these scenes in an energetic way that builds momentum, which can't have been easy. All The President's Men is made up almost entirely of people doing little more than talking but it's more thrilling than most movies that rely on explosions and car chases as crutches. The screenplay by William Goldman won an Oscar and it's easy to understand why - the script is so solid that it really becomes the star of the show.

All told, All The President's Men was nominated for 8 Oscars and won 4, for Sound, Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, and Supporting Actor for Jason Robards. Surprisingly, neither Redford nor Hoffman made the cut as Best Actor, though the field was admittedly a bit crowded that year (the winner was Peter Finch for Network, the other four nominees were William Holden for Network, Robert De Niro for Taxi Driver, Giancarlo Giannini for Seven Beauties, and Sylvester Stallone for Rocky). It's perhaps because it's difficult to think of Woodward and Bernstein as separate people rather than a team (throughout the film they're referred as "Woodstein"), which is really a credit to how well Redford and Hoffman work together. They make a believable team and play their characters as men who have their differences but aren't defined by stylistic quirks. Redford and Hoffman have both had rich careers full of great performances and their performances in All The President's Men are right up their amongst their best.

Review: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2007)

* * * *
Director: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Ben Wishaw, Alan Rickman, Dustin Hoffman

Perfume: The Story of a Murder is a film that absolutely should not work and yet, miraculously, does. It takes as its centre the sense of smell, perhaps the most difficult of the five senses to convey through the medium of film, and makes the rest of the story work around it. Every emotion and thought in this story is tied to scent and, somehow, director Tom Tykwer is able to take that and transform it into something of great visual impact, weaving a cinematic spell that seems impossible. This film is a masterpiece, plain and simple.

Based on the novel of the same name by Patrick Suskind, Perfume follows the life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Wishaw), born unceremoniously in Paris in the mid-18th century. Immediately the film confronts us with the crowded, polluted streets of Paris and though of course you can’t smell it, you can sense the stench of the fish market where Grenouille’s mother lays under her stall, casually births her baby, cuts the cord with the same dirty knife she uses to gut fish, and then leaves the presumed dead infant in the filth so that she can carry on with her work. The narrator (John Hurt) informs us that this is the fifth such birth she has endured but that this one will be different because, unlike the other children, this one will live. Grenouille’s cries alert the people of the market who, upon discovering the baby under the stall call out for the murder of his mother, who in a sense becomes the first of her son’s many casualties.

Grenouille lives for a number of years in an orphanage and then is sold to a tannery, where he works several more years. If the drudgery and cruelty of his life affects him, he does not show it. His world is defined solely and completely by his sense of smell, so keenly tuned that he can smell the rocks under the water of a river. He longs to escape the tannery and go to work for the Italian perfumer Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), where he hopes to learn how to distil and preserve scent, particularly the scent of living beings. He gets his wish and goes to work for Baldini but learns that he can’t teach him what he really wants to know. To learn that he must go to Grasse and once there he begins his monstrous collection, killing women and bottling their scents and then creating a perfume so potent, so beautiful, that men and women fall at his feet in worship.

The key to the film is the character of Grenouille, who is absolutely fascinating despite the fact that he has no emotions, no thoughts, no personality, and exists only to smell things. He is utterly devoid of humanity and greedily sucks the life out of everyone around him (there is a running theme through the film that all his “masters,” from his mother, the owner of the orphanage, the owner of the tannery, and Baldini, meet unfortunate ends the moment he is finished with them), existing only to take and never to give anything back. He feels no guilt regarding the many women that he murders because he’s unable to recognize them as human beings, and sees them only as scents he has yet to collect. He’s more animal than human and because of this it is difficult to hate him; he has no higher consciousness, no ability to reason. He is, in a very real sense, an innocent, which is how Wishaw plays him. Grenouille slithers through life with nothing but this need, this compulsive and all-consuming desire to create scent and is unable to recognize that his act of creation is also an act of destruction.

Adapting a novel as beautifully written as Suskind’s is always a tricky proposition. Often it is the prose itself as much as the characters and story that make it compelling, and that is of course something that cannot be translated to film. The film stays quite faithful to the novel, save for a few minor details and subplots, and makes up for the loss of beautifully constructed sentences by substituting them for beautifully rendered visuals. This is one of the most visually arresting films I’ve seen in a long time, wonderfully detailed in its art direction and costume design and perfectly capturing the spirit of the source novel. Few films make the page to screen transition as smoothly and perfectly as this one does; it is an unqualified artistic triumph.

Review: Last Chance Harvey

* * *
Director: Joel Hopkins
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson

I like Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. Aside from being wonderful actors, I think that they’re both pleasant screen presences and I would gladly watch either of them in just about anything. In Last Chance Harvey they play two lonely people who manage to find each other, spend a day walking and talking, connect with each other in a way that we suspect neither has connected in some time. It’s all perfectly nice but... that’s about it. It’s a fine film but when the leads are two performers as dynamic as Thompson and Hoffman can be, you’d think it wouldn’t be so bland.

Hoffman is the eponymous Harvey, a Los Angeles musician who makes a living writing jingles. He doesn’t like his job, finding it a demeaning form of making music, but he’s nevertheless desperate to hold on to it when he learns that it’s in jeopardy. He has to go to London for his daughter’s wedding but he’ll cut the trip short in order to be back in time to make a presentation to a client, informed by his boss that this will be his last chance.

Harvey arrives in London with little fanfare. He gets to the hotel thinking that the entire family will be there, only to discover that his ex-wife has rented a house and invited pretty much everyone other than him to stay there. His daughter welcomes him reluctantly and informs him that she’d like her stepfather to give her away at the wedding. Every bit the outsider, Harvey sadly watches the proceedings from afar and then makes his way to the airport, just barely missing his flight. Shortly thereafter he meets Kate (Thompson), with whom he has more in common than he immediately suspects, and they take a walk. After they’ve gotten to know each other a bit she talks him into going to his daughter’s wedding reception and trying to salvage their relationship.

Hoffman and Thompson have a nice, easy chemistry and their characters are similarly well-matched. Harvey and Kate are both people who have been deeply disappointed by life, who have difficulty connecting with others, and who are prone to crankiness. Both are also frustrated artists, Harvey having failed to fulfill his dream of becoming a jazz pianist and Kate aspiring to be a novelist. When they first get to talking and Harvey half-heartedly confesses to being a composer of jingles Kate asks him in a rather direct way if that’s all, which is interesting since she later tells him that she’d like to make a living writing beach reads. I would think that jingles are to music what beach reads are to literature, but I digress. These are two people who believe that they have failed to live up to their potential - though it might perhaps be more accurate to say that their potential doesn't live up to their dreams - and are scared to take a chance just in case this is as good as it will ever get. They step out on the limb for each other and both Hoffman and Thompson get a chance to show off those superior skills that both possess and in the process render effective and touching performances.

We sense that prior to meeting each other, neither had had much fun in a long time and we’d like them to have fun because they seem like nice enough people. The problem with the film is that it’s more interested in plot contrivances than it is in the relationship and so we don’t get to see all that much of Harvey and Kate interacting with each other. There’s also a strange and truncated subplot involving Kate’s mother, who is convinced that her new neighbour is a murderer, that goes nowhere and only serves as a further distraction from the real story, which is Harvey and Kate together.

Last Chance Harvey is a nice, perfectly harmless film but it fails to achieve more than that. It’s wonderful to see Hoffman and Thompson on screen together but the film doesn't really seem to know what to do with them together and spends a lot of time finding ways to keep them apart. Harvey and Kate are interesting and compelling characters and I would have liked to have gotten to know them a bit better.

Countdown To Oscar: Midnight Cowboy

* * 1/2
Best Picture, 1969

Director: John Schlessinger
Starring: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman

There’s no doubt that Midnight Cowboy is a watershed film, one of several that signalled a new direction in mainstream American film. It’s acceptance by AMPAS sets the stage for the series of dark, gritty films that would dominate the Best Picture race over the next decade; films that took chances and were willing to risk not being “crowd pleasers.” That being said, Midnight Cowboy is nonetheless a film that is exactly as unsuccessful as it is successful, as timid as it is brave.

As most people are no doubt aware, Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is a Texan who comes to New York to make a career for himself as an escort for lonely, rich women. From beginning to end, he looks entirely out of place in this setting, striding through the streets in his fringed coat and cowboy hat, looking entirely too earnest, wearing his gullibility on his sleeve. Joe’s a big guy but you worry about him anyway because he looks like such an easy target. One of his first “clients” turns out to be a prostitute herself and Joe ends up paying her from his little store of cash. Later still, he’ll be duped again, this time by a lowlife named Ratso (Dustin Hoffman), who sends him to the apartment of an evangelist who tries to make Joe repent.

Joe catches up with Ratso eventually but, instead of exacting revenge on him, agrees to let him become his “manager.” Ratso’s reasoning is simple: Joe has the looks, Ratso has the brains. However, even with Ratso’s ability to scam, things continue to look grim for both men. They hole up together in an abandoned building, fighting against cold, hunger and the inevitability of finding themselves thrown out. These scenes are the best in the film, imbued with an ugly, unflinching realism that makes this movie different from any other. Hoffman’s sickly looking Ratso and Voight’s increasingly deflated and downtrodden Joe fit in this setting and the film would be better if it followed through on the promise of this aspect of the story and allowed itself to be an outright, uncompromising tragedy.

The film has a few flaws which, in and of themselves, could be surmountable but taken all together present a real problem to the film as a whole. The flashback scenes which detail both Joe’s childhood and an attack on him and a girlfriend in Texas, are intrusive and clumsy. These scenes suggest much more than they illuminate and given that the film ended up with an X rating anyway, Schlessinger should have just gone for it rather than wash it in ambiguity. Connected to this is the problem the film seems to have in dealing with its homosexual themes. Much has been said and written over the years about the relationship between Joe and Ratso which does, at times, seem almost marital, though I’ve always felt that it was rather one-sided with Ratso lusting for Joe and Joe accepting it because Ratso is more or less harmless. It’s a fascinating relationship, but the film seems to want to look away from this aspect of it as much as possible. Further, there’s a scene where Joe is with a John and turns violent with him and it seems so out-of-character that it disrupts the flow of the film.

There are a number of scenes which either don’t fit or just don’t work. One of them is the scene with the evangelist and another is the sequence which finds Joe and Ratso at a party. The whole flow of this sequence is out of step with the greater part of the story and Joe and Ratso’s inclusion at the party ignores a fundamental fact about their characters: they’re outsiders. The essence of these characters is that they exist on the very fringes of society and to have them in a situation where they’re not only invited but also accepted by these other people undermines their story.

While I think that Schlessinger is ultimately misguided and too timid in his direction, the film does have two things strongly in its favour: the performances by Voight and Hoffman. I think that this is Hoffman’s finest performance, playing this character who could easily have cross over the line to become a caricature, but Hoffman keeps him so grounded that he could slip off the screen and disappear into the streets. Voight’s role isn’t as flashy, but his performance is solid and assured and complements Hoffman’s nicely. These two actors in these two roles are the reason to see the film.

100 Days, 100 Movies: The Graduate (1967)

Director: Mike Nichols
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katherine Ross

The Graduate is a film that you have to see at a certain time in your life in order to fully relate to it. If you’ve just graduated from University and haven’t yet started your career (or even decided on your career path), you’ll relate to Benjamin Braddock’s ennui, his “Now what? Is this it?” attitude, his embarrassment at his parents’ aggressive pride in him, and his need to be left alone. But, if you see it again later, after you’ve passed through this stage, you’ll find yourself wondering why it has to be the story of Benjamin’s affair with Mrs. Robinson, rather than of Mrs. Robinson’s affair with Benjamin.

Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) is the story’s most interesting character, mostly because she’s the only one with character. Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) and Elaine (Katherine Ross) are as lacking in depth as they are in experience. These are suburban kids who’ve grown up in a relatively insulated world where nothing really bad has ever happened to them, and who are more or less the passive playthings of life. Benjamin’s parents are shiny, happy people who would like nothing more than for their son to graduate from college and come home to marry the girl next door. They don’t have personalities outside of Benjamin. Mr. Robinson exists mostly on the fringes as the “villain,” if the film in fact has one. Mrs. Robinson is the only character who is really alive, though we see how she suffers in her life. There is an undercurrent of boredom in the film, the boredom of having everything you want coupled with the pretence that it makes you happy. But Mrs. Robinson adopts no pretences. She’s bored and unhappy and pursues Benjamin less because she can’t resist him (she can do better and she knows it) and more because he’s the one who happens to be there.

And Benjamin really is just “there.” He comes home, passively allows himself to be paraded around by his parents for their friends, who ask the inevitable (and inevitably unanswerable) questions about his future, and give him advice like, “Plastics” (“Plastics,” Benjamin repeats, his voice flat and emotionless). He spends days just floating in his parents’ pool, simply existing, not really doing anything. Even when he begins the affair with Mrs. Robinson, there’s still the sense that he’s not really doing anything. There is one scene where Mrs. Robinson attempts to remove a spot from her blouse. Benjamin walks up behind her and grabs her breast and she… just keeps working the spot. He’s her accessory and she’ll pick him up for use when she’s ready to use him – and in between those times, there’s Benjamin, floating in the pool.

Benjamin gets involved with Elaine at his parents’ insistence and falls in love with her in spite of himself and to Mrs. Robinson’s fury. Elaine learns the truth (in a great scene between Hoffman, Bancroft and Ross where the final pronouncement isn’t delivered verbally, just through looks) and runs away back to school. Benjamin follows her and manages to work his way back into her life. Why does she want anything to do with him? I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it has a lot to do with the fact that she’s now about to enter into her own shiny, happy suburban marriage and sees in Benjamin a chance of escape into something more exciting, something forbidden and troublesome. It’s a burst of colourful drama in what is shaping up to be a black-and-white life. And what could be more colourful and dramatic than Benjamin stopping her wedding? How could she not make the most of this opportunity and run off with him?

Part of what makes The Graduate so good is the way that it speaks to you differently at different times in your life. This isn’t a static film; it shifts with you as your own life shifts. At one point you may see Benjamin as a flawed hero, his relationship with Elaine as compelling. At another, you’ll see Benjamin as an empty vessel waiting to be filled, his relationship with Elaine as a romanticized vision of what love should be. In either interpretation, Hoffman is ideal as Benjamin, alternating between cool indifference, and the nervous anticipation we see – especially in his early scenes with Mrs. Robinson – as he attempts to prepare for the fact that something is about to happen in his life. Bancroft, too, is marvellous, giving Mrs. Robinson layers and dimension and not allowing her to simply be the lonely housewife. This is a very real character and not the caricature that popular culture has made of the “Mrs. Robinson” type.

The film ends exactly as it should, not with the adrenaline fuelled flight from the church, but with it’s aftermath. Benjamin and Elaine sit beside each other on a bus, neither speaking, not even really looking at each other. When asked what happened to them, director Mike Nichols once stated that “they ended up just like their parents,” which must be true because Benjamin and Elaine ultimately lack the imagination to make themselves anything else. You can see it in their faces at the end: Now what? Is this it?