Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 178: Thu Jun 29

The Graduate (Nichols, 1967): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.15pm


The Graduate re-release is the highlight of the Dustin Hoffman season at the BFI Southbank. The film is on an extended run at the cinema until July 6th. Full details here.

Time Out review:
Modish, calculated, but hugely popular film which, with the help of an irrelevant but diverting Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack, proved one of the biggest hits of the '60s. Dustin Hoffman, looking for the most part like a startled rabbit, got caught between the rapacious Mrs Robinson and her daughter, and suggested a vulnerability that was sufficiently novel to turn him into as big a movie star as all the he-men like McQueen and Newman. The film itself is very broken-backed, partly because Anne Bancroft's performance as the mother carries so much more weight than Katharine Ross' as the daughter, partly because Nichols couldn't decide whether he was making a social satire or a farce. As a comment on sex in the West Coast stockbroker belt, the film falls a long way short of Clint Eastwood's later Breezy, which makes much more of a lot less promising material.
Chris Peachment

Here (and above) is the trailer.


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