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A review by lucyismyname
The Graduate by Charles Webb
3.0
This contains spoilers, but I’m pretty confident everyone knows what happens in The Graduate from cultural osmosis anyway.
This is a rare instance in which the movie is significantly better than the book, although this strong ranking may be in part based on the age of consumption - I watched the movie first in high school and I am 31 now.
One reason I say this is that reading the book at 31 I mostly saw it from the perspectives of everyone the protagonist disrespected - something I don’t remember feeling when I watched the movie. I didn’t buy that he was some disillusioned intellectual - nothing he said gave any indication that he was smart. Also, some time in the intervening decade and a half I visited the website www.tvtropes.com and can therefore identify that the love interest (Elaine) was a classic Mary Sue and offered nothing that should elicit such a strong and sudden attraction.
The movie is pretty faithful to the book (including using strings of the same dialogue). However, the book relies almost solely on describing events and dialogue (and provides very little thoughts and feelings). It’s basically written like a script, so it’s not surprising it works better in a visual medium.
What I remember most vividly from the movie is the ending. There’s no dialogue, but you watch the excitement and adrenaline drain from Benjamin and Elaine’s faces as it sinks in that they are still lost and The Sound of Silence replays. They viewer realises that they have only distracted themselves with all the melodrama, and they are two people who don’t really know each other; the future is still uncertain and no option feels of value. The book’s ending hints that their subversive act hasn’t provided the clarity they were seeking, but it doesn’t convey the extent of the emptiness they still feel.
This is a rare instance in which the movie is significantly better than the book, although this strong ranking may be in part based on the age of consumption - I watched the movie first in high school and I am 31 now.
One reason I say this is that reading the book at 31 I mostly saw it from the perspectives of everyone the protagonist disrespected - something I don’t remember feeling when I watched the movie. I didn’t buy that he was some disillusioned intellectual - nothing he said gave any indication that he was smart. Also, some time in the intervening decade and a half I visited the website www.tvtropes.com and can therefore identify that the love interest (Elaine) was a classic Mary Sue and offered nothing that should elicit such a strong and sudden attraction.
The movie is pretty faithful to the book (including using strings of the same dialogue). However, the book relies almost solely on describing events and dialogue (and provides very little thoughts and feelings). It’s basically written like a script, so it’s not surprising it works better in a visual medium.
What I remember most vividly from the movie is the ending. There’s no dialogue, but you watch the excitement and adrenaline drain from Benjamin and Elaine’s faces as it sinks in that they are still lost and The Sound of Silence replays. They viewer realises that they have only distracted themselves with all the melodrama, and they are two people who don’t really know each other; the future is still uncertain and no option feels of value. The book’s ending hints that their subversive act hasn’t provided the clarity they were seeking, but it doesn’t convey the extent of the emptiness they still feel.