Review of The Graduate (1967) by Mike S — 07 Apr 2011

I enjoyed this movie and it was well made (Bancroft is amazing), but it didn't say to me what all of the "Greatest movie lists" told me it would, I received a very different message. It appeared to me that Braddock wasn't rebelling against bourgeoisie morals, but against his own boredom.

The one time we see him enter the land of the peasants he becomes just as offended as the perfect-skinned face of the patrician class he was trying to disgust. He just comes across as melodramatic, a little narcissistic, and in the end does exactly what people wanted him to do, he just had to make it more complicated first.

I also felt the character goes down as one of the most underdeveloped pivotal characters in film history. The movie is funny, the scuba scene is brilliant and the closing scene was stunning. Personally, I want to know more about Mrs.

Robinson, she was everything but innocent yet somehow she feels a little like the victim of some adolescent tantrum.