The Graduate - Where It All Started

If you are the type of person who would watch Star Movies or HBO movie-for-the-upcoming-month advertisements,
Or the kind of guy who would sneak a peek into the movie collection that one of your class girls has in her laptop when you are asked to use it for organizing an onstage event with the whole department watching on,

Or the sorry, i mean 'rare' breed of men who would download a specified set of movies and burn them onto a disk (at times with a pathetic readme attached) for your girl/woman/her friends to watch, 

then you must have probably come across a lot of "Romantic-Comedy" movies. (And chick flicks* too)


The Graduate is one such movie. Except that, it was the only such movie at that time.

Based on a novel of the same name, the plot goes something like this. 
Open scene. Benjamin Braddock, a recent university graduate (must be an under graduate) is dissatisfied with his family's way of socializing (which is a rich party at home with the friends) and has no clue what he is going to do next with his life. He gets seduced by an elder woman - Mrs.Robinson and Mr.Robinson happens to be his dad's friend. He later meets Elaine Robinson, their daughter. And the rest is history. 


Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock and Anne Bancroft as Mrs.Robinson put in two brilliant performances. Hoffman is perfect as being an innocent and confused young man. More importantly he has that subtlety in his acting, which forces the viewers to think it can happen to anyone. In other words, the guy in the picture is the perfect 'common man.' Mrs.Robinson is really seducing. dot.


The movie also has a brilliant soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel. 'Sounds of Silence', 'Scarborough fair' and 'Mrs.Robinson' are amazing pieces. It also has really good camera angles and shots for its time, I m told.


Now there must atleast be a thousand odd movies with plots revolving around affairs. But the Graduate is overtly significant in the fact that it was the one that led to those thousand odd movies. Releasing in 1967, it has largely influenced the art of film-making. Up-to a time when movies were all about cowboys and outlaws(Eastwood) or murders and thrillers based upon novels (Hitchcock), the avant-garde Graduate is said to have mirrored the happenings of the society in a bold and satirical way. Thats right. Hugh Grant wouldn't have been in movies otherwise now.


Now I compared this with the Tamil-movie industry in my mind. Tamil movie heroes rarely have affairs. 
We have a trend of Dada movies with aruvaals and sumo cars (Even a worser trend of movies with different areas in Madurai as film titles) We don't enjoy them. Thinking pragmatically, not even a bit. (unless Vijayakanth or TR does it, in which case its humor) But the stream of movies getting released sadly seem to be non-ending. 
Violence is okay for a hero. But not sex. (Oooh that would be perverted) 
Grow up people.
Why does every Tamil movie hero have to be a good guy? 
Yes he shoots. He kills. He steals. But he is a good guy. Why?
There were a few movies that tried. But until someone does a Graduate (where the hero has an affair with an elder woman) "successfully" here, things are going to remain still. 
And at that time S.J.Suryah will have a railway station named after him.


* Chick flicks are different from romantic comedies. Although the internet might not agree, in my opinion Romantic comedies that are slightly gay are chick flicks.