Just The Robinson's Affair

I first watched The Graduate with friends on what seemed to be the precipice of a summer of love, little did we know we’d stumbled across the original Summer Of Love , Pasadena 1967. We were equipped with stolen alcohol, of course, nothing sets the mood quite like your mates’ mum’s old bottle of Drambuie. We were lured in, you could say, just like poor old Benjamiin Braddock, by stockinged legs, lipstick stains on crystal glass and a truth widely acknowledged that everyone - and I mean everyone - knows a Mrs Robinson. 

A story centering around a 20 year old college graduate, who unsurprisingly seems to resemble every vanilla lad I have ever met, is redeemed only in part by a lovable awkwardness that he exudes. I wanted to adore this film, the salacious, seductive aesthetic promised a stylish glance on a decade of technicolour and social revolution. However I felt an ambiguous numbness after watching it, as if the unrelenting passage of time that each of the characters are fighting had caught up with them - not to get too deep or anything. A classic consisting of a trio of characters, each quite alone in their perception of love, sex and reality, attempting to do The Twist with the sexually stifled society of Pasadena. You know the rest. 

I felt that beyond a supposed ‘Comedy drama’, I have to warn you the comedy is a bit ropey, there is a sadness and a multidimensional aspect of Mrs Robinson that is ultimately ignored in popculture. Simon and Garfunkle touch on it in the whistful lines ‘jesus loves you more than you will know’, as beyond the pornified milfs who pointlessly try to imitate her , Mrs Robinson , I found,  is a woman of a multifaceted nature, a woman who is trying to absolve her sins and indeed herself through her search for identity. Be it, admittedly, in a problemtic way. Much like any coming of age film, she is both the educator and the educated through her affair with Benjamin. As a middle aged woman she is interacting with her own personal femininity and the femininty constructed for her by society. We are presented with a satire of head to toe leopard skin laced with sex but we find ourselves in the company of a Mrs. Robinson. She is both villain and victim, heathen and heroine, a character of depth and vulnerability. Bit of a legend. 

Coming of Age, sexual naivity and a renewal of life are all concepts that are passed around like a joint by film makers but I believe first were awakened in the dusty LA pad of the Braddocks. Benjamin submerges himself in the aquamarine waters of a hot sunny day in Pasadina and emerges changed, a sort of budget baptism if you will, into his discovery of identity. 

At the heart of this film, the possibility of love and the possibility of sex walk hand in hand, enamoured with eachother and just a little bit drunk off Mrs Robinson’s Bourbon. And like any good, slightly oedipal-romcomish-drama, there is a wedding. Spoilers: its very, very dramatic.

As the end of the film approaches, Benjamin rocks up to a 60s white church that resembles a crematorium. Though there is intense emotion and no doubt deep sentiment meant when he decides to crash the ceremony wielding a holy cross as a sword there is an off colour comedy about the situation. You find yourself just a bit in love with Benjamin for his sheer audacity , or at least I did. 

Pitiful, corageous and just a little bit heartwarming , a runaway bride and ‘hello darkness my old friend’ make an offbeat comedy take a sharp turn to a psychadelic style ending. Was Benjamin ever in love with Mrs Robinson? Does he truly Love Elaine? Does she love him? Where are they off to? Who knows? Who cares. The beauty of this film lies in its possibility to transport its viewer to a time of free love and confusion. Take it for what it is , an indulgent take on first loves and everybodys ultimate search for identity.