The Graduate (1968)

A young man (Dustin Hoffman) comes home from college and, like many his age, does not know what to do with the rest of his life. He tries to avoid the adults he's known who all want to applaud his efforts but obviously don't relate with him. An older woman (Anne Bancroft) lures him to her home and undresses before trying to get lucky with what she sees as a pushover. He responds ultimately since he doesn't seem to have had any during college to brag about. He doesn't tell his parents who are friends with her and her husband. Cheating can be excused if you do it with the right person. The daughter of the unfaithful couple comes home from college and again our young graduate is sucked into taking her out. Where they go is quite humorous and what happens over the head of the daughter makes for an interesting juxtaposition and oh, make sure the kids leave the room. He is such a sap for crying he ends up falling in love with our tear-soaked college girl. The father gives him a lecture on what a degenerate he is but he does this more for himself than to educate our cheating youth. The mother who is getting naked with him does not want him to see her daughter more for reducing her competition than anything else. She also doesn't want her tryst to be exposed. He finally is honest with the daughter about what he has done and she leaves him. Things get clicking now as THE GRADUATE  picks up speed and our young stallion pursues her at Berkeley. She is surprised that he has taken up residence to hang out with her. She likes this other man and that bothers the lad but she can't get over how committed her pursuer is and says "Why don't you snatch me away and marry me?" The family has other ideas about the couple and now he has to go through other channels to find what happened to her. He gets word there is a marriage ceremony and jets out there to stop it. He makes it just as the bride and groom are kissing and screams out her name. A nice ending ensues and makes sense based on what we saw the characters doing and saying. I found it kewl to see how classic film from another decade does show its age compared to the best cinema today but maybe in twenty years what we see today will seem formulaic. [4.6 stars]