The Graduate (1967)

recommended by lecturers on graduation day in 2019, watched in that same summer

as the story progresses, the film loses sight of its most important and initial issue: what is Benjamin going to do with his future? this question gives way to problems stemming from the affair with Mrs. Robinson and then the chase after Elaine. Benjamin’s love for Elaine is completely illogical and seems more like yet another distraction from the immoral affair with Mrs. Robinson which Ben himself is aware of, just as his affair with Mrs. Robinson is a distraction from planning his future and grappling with post-graduation existential crisis.

pulling from Jacob R. Brackman’s review in The New Yorker:

‘[…] we understand that the whole Robinson episode is but a distraction from the problem of Benjamin’s future.’

‘Naturally gifted, with a family of wealth and position to back him up, an impressive degree, a fellowship award, the ability to excel in almost any career he might choose, Benjamin exists, as the film opens, in that condition of voluptuous potentiality which is supposed to define young men. The condition fills him with anguish and confusion.’

‘At one level, the film proceeds awkwardly, deceptively, through a series of less and less interesting problems, sidestepping difficulties of its own authorship, until it can solve only the least interesting of them.’ - the ending in which Elaine and Ben are on the bus together, presumably getting married.

there are also no portrayals or examples of the ideal adult in the film at all, illustrating the directionless and confusing predicament Ben has found himself in, with no one to guide him on how he should live his life after graduating from college.

‘Indeed, no one gives Benjamin any sense of direction, much less inspiration. Had there been a single great teacher—or, for that matter, a great hanger-on—back at his nameless Eastern college, he would not be quite so mopily lost. His adulthood looks bleak largely because his environment offers no decent ideal of adulthood—not even a clue to what that ideal might be.’

it is only during the part where he chases Elaine that:

‘Suddenly, we see him behaving like a man of absolute purpose—a man who knows what he wants and fights for it. Suddenly, he is overflowing with energy and sense of direction. After moping aimlessly through two-thirds of the picture, he is transformed, through his pursuit of Elaine, into the conventional man, resolved upon his chase. On these terms, his success is assured. Once you really know what you’re after, in the movies, it’s mostly a question of going out and getting it.’