The Graduate

The basis for Mike Nichols' acclaimed 1967 film starring Dustin Hoffman. When Benjamin Braddock graduates from a small Eastern college and moves home to his parent's house, everyone wants to know what he's going to do with his life. Embittered by the emptiness of his college education and indifferent to his grim prospect - grad school? a career in plastics? - Benjamin falls haplessly into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the relentlessly seductive wife of his father's business partner. It's only when beautiful coed Elaine Robinson comes home to visit her parents that Benjamin, now smitten, thinks he might have found some kind of direction in his life. Unfortunately for Benjamin, Mrs. Robinson plays the role of the protective mother as well as she does the one of mistress. A wondrously fierce and absurd battle of wills ensues, with love and idealism triumphing over the forces of corruption and conformity.