The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) and The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marielle Heller, 2015)

by Fiona Underhill

The Graduate is one of the most enduring and influential classics of the 1960s. It was Dustin Hoffman’s breakthrough role, at the age of 30 (although he was playing 10 years younger) as the protagonist – existential drifter Ben Braddock. After graduating college, Ben is aimless and experiencing ennui. He punctuates the boredom with an affair with his parent’s friend Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft, age 36 but playing ten years older) who he has known his whole life. Despite Ben’s attempts to resist both his own parents and Mr Robinson, at their insistence, he takes out the Robinson’s daughter Elaine (the beautiful Katherine Ross) and ends up falling for her. Things come to a head in a tumultuous final act.