Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How ‘The Graduate’ Became the Touchstone of a Generation

Hollywood biographer Gray (Ron Howard) delivers a celebration of Mike Nichols’s seminal The Graduate in time for the film’s 50th anniversary. Unfortunately for a film so worthy of our admiration, Gray’s effort comes across as unnecessary. Split into three sections, her book begins with a history of the film’s production, continues with a retelling of its story, and ends with a discussion of its release and influence. The production history feels at once drawn-out and shallow, though it provides some insight into Dustin Hoffman’s feelings about his unlikely and unexpected elevation to leading man. The middle section is less close reading than unabashed rehash of the film’s plot. Appropriately for a book about how the film became “the touchstone of a generation,” the third section, on The Graduate’s afterlife, is the most effective. One begins to see on the page why this film has remained in America’s collective unconscious for half a century, but Gray falls short of adding to or reframing the film’s cultural cachet. (Nov.)