The Graduate Movie Essay

The Predator Next-Door

The Graduate, directed by Mike Nichols, is a 1967 film, which combines comedy, romance, and drama. Ben Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman, is a newly graduated college student, who returned home for the summer. Like many, Ben is lost, worried about his future endeavors, and what he will do next. Anne Bancroft plays Mrs. Robinson, who is one of the main female characters, and “the desperate housewife and mother who ensnares Benjamin” (Kashner). Close friends of his parents, and the wife of Ben’s fathers business partner, does not stop Mrs. Robinson from pursuing an interest in Ben. As the film continues, Ben begins to get involved with his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Robinson. With a rather noticeable age gap, almost twice in age, Ben and Mrs. Robinson keep their new relationship quite concealed. Throughout the film, various pieces of clothing, and mise en scène within the film, portrays Mrs. Robinson as a “predator’ as Ben evolves as

Pressured to put on a show in his new scuba diving gear, Ben exits the patio door, and walks directly into the pool. Trapped, physically in his gear, and mentally with emotional distress by coming home, he falls into the water, allowing himself to sink to the bottom as he submissively sits there. Spending many of his sunny afternoons floating on his pool float, Ben is interrupted by his parents and the Robinsons, forced to say hello to his neighbors, and mistress by his mother. The scene of Ben jumping on his pool float, quickly switches over to the Taft hotel, with him lading on Mrs. Robinson. This later scene of the film represents his overall mischievous affair with her, “his loss of innocence, being both on top of the pool water freely floating and Mrs. Robinson, he is freed from his trap, the big fish tank that is the swimming pool”