What The Grad­u­ate taught me about life and grow­ing up

Ben­jamin Brad­dock (Dustin Hoff­man) knows how daunt­ing grad­u­at­ing uni­ver­si­ty is. As the trav­e­la­tor glides him towards the next stage of his life, his fid­gety face shows he is ner­vous. He under­stands what I’ve just dis­cov­ered. After you get your degree, your life becomes uncer­tain. You wor­ry about how you will pay your rent, you learn some friend­ships are cir­cum­stan­tial and you feel the pres­sure to get a job wor­thy of the work you’ve done dur­ing the last three years. It’s hard watch­ing the The Grad­u­ate, which turns 50 this years, and not mak­ing Ben’s sto­ry about me.

When The Grad­u­ate was released in 1967 it was dis­mis­sive­ly labelled as a ​“sex com­e­dy”. While the film is fun­ny and fea­tures sex, its pri­or­i­ties lie in cre­at­ing a touch­ing por­trait of anx­i­ety and the dis­lo­ca­tion from soci­ety you feel when you expe­ri­ence the post-uni­ver­si­ty blues.

Direc­tor Mike Nichols reveals Ben’s unease in an ear­ly din­ner par­ty scene. His well-mean­ing but self-indulged par­ents, bril­liant­ly played by William Daniels and Eliz­a­beth Wil­son, host a get-togeth­er to cel­e­brate their son’s recent suc­cess­es. The cam­era is held in a tight close-up of Hoffman’s face as he telegraphs his character’s con­fu­sion: are the guest cel­e­brat­ing or crit­i­cis­ing him as they relent­less­ly inter­ro­gate him about his future? By the end of the scene, you feel as if you’re suf­fo­cat­ing as Ben stum­bles over basic answers. You want to escape the par­ty along­side him.

It is Anne Bancroft’s Mrs Robin­son who orches­trates his res­cue. The bored house­wife takes him home from the par­ty in her attempts to seduce him, and by doing so she presents him with a fan­ta­sy that will act as a release valve for his dis­sat­is­fac­tion. She knows Ben needs to be seduced as the expec­ta­tions placed on him are crip­pling him. Like all grad­u­ates fac­ing their new real­i­ty, Ben needs a bliss­ful dis­trac­tion from his unfo­cused life. He needs dri­ve, and Mrs Robin­son is more than hap­py to be part of his life as long as he does what she says: name­ly, go nowhere near her daugh­ter Elaine (Kather­ine Ross).

Nichols and writ­ers Buck Hen­ry and Calder Will­ing­ham rel­ish skew­er­ing the adult char­ac­ters, show­ing that even though they think they’re doing right by their chil­dren, the pres­sure they put on them con­tributes to their grad­u­ate malaise. Mr Robin­son (Mur­ray Hamil­ton) forces Elaine to leave col­lege so she can mar­ry a man. He does this because he believes it’s what’s best for his daugh­ter, even though she wish­es to stay. She gets into a funk and responds by run­ning off with Ben, a man he labels as a ​“degen­er­ate”. Ben’s ennui sinks in as he doesn’t want to dis­ap­point his par­ents because ​“they don’t deserve” it. His dis­lo­ca­tion is a direct result of the pres­sure he feels his par­ents are plac­ing on him. If there wasn’t any expec­ta­tion placed on him, he wouldn’t be in this situation.

It would be self­ish and naïve to blame the dis­lo­ca­tion some grad­u­ates feel entire­ly on their imme­di­ate sur­round­ings, but Nichols’ film is told exclu­sive­ly from Ben’s per­spec­tive, and he needs some­one to blame oth­er than him­self. He explains to Elaine that he feels like he is ​“play­ing a game and the rules don’t make any sense.” Like an angsty teen, he acts out against his par­ents, who brag con­stant­ly about how much they’ve done for him.

One of the film’s most icon­ic images is of Ben sub­merged in a swim­ming pool wear­ing an oxy­gen tank and flip­pers – a potent metaphor for how overe­d­u­cat­ed and under­em­ployed grad­u­ates are. The have been giv­en the best pos­si­ble career prepa­ra­tion, but unless they belong to the small per­cent­age who join grad­u­ate schemes, they end up work­ing menial office jobs or, as in my case, in a shop where every time I scan an item the cor­re­spond­ing beep repeat­ed­ly screams YOUR LIFE SUCKS. And, instead of doing any­thing about our predica­ments and prov­ing we are as smart as we say we are or the piece of paper we were giv­en when we grad­u­at­ed says we are, we sink deep­er into the pool rem­i­nisc­ing about the time and place where we were suc­cess­ful: university.

Yet Nichols proves nos­tal­gia for our past suc­cess­es isn’t a cure for malaise. When Ben stalks Elaine back to Berkley he is return­ing to a col­lege where he finds he is no longer wel­come. His land­lord imme­di­ate­ly dis­likes him because he is ​“drift­ing”, as he is nei­ther a stu­dent nor employed. Oth­er char­ac­ters reject Ben for step­ping off his pre­de­ter­mined life path, and as he boards the bus with Elaine he realis­es life will always be filled with uncertainty.

That penul­ti­mate shot is famous for its still­ness, but the real final shot is the bus pulling off into the dis­tance. Through­out the film Nichols dis­plays an obses­sion with move­ment, be it through the use of long takes in the din­ner par­ty scenes, in lat­er shots of Ben speed­ing across town on his date with Elaine, or the trav­e­la­tor at the very begin­ning. The mes­sage is clear enough. You can try to turn around but you’ll still keep mov­ing in the same direc­tion. So you bet­ter just embrace life.

The Grad­u­ate is back in cin­e­mas 23 June as part of the BFI’s Dustin Hoff­man sea­son. Fore more info vis­it what​son​.bfi​.org​.uk