Wednesday, August 19, 2026

heaven holds a place for those who pray

 In The Graduate, the situation is Benjamin Braddock has just graduated from college, and he doesn't know what he should do next:

graduate school?

job?

find a girlfriend and contemplate marriage?


The thoughts he's having about it start to get kind of existential, like he cannot see a point to anything - he feels lost, directionless.

        His parents, at the beginning of the movie, are real happy that he has graduated and had good grades and was a "track star."  They throw a party for him, and all their friends are there, telling Ben how proud they are of him.

One asks, "What are you going to do now?"

Ben:  "I was just going to go upstairs for a minute."


A little later in the movie his parents' viewpoint seems to be changing, a little.  His mother tentatively asks where he goes at night; his dad tells him relaxing in the pool is OK for a young man, but after "a few weeks, I'd imagine he'd start to think about getting off his ass."


        Out on a date, Ben confides to the girl his insecurities about what to choose next in his life, saying, "The rules don't make any sense to me - they're being made up by all the wrong people.

        No! - I mean, no one makes them up, they seem to have made themselves up."




-30-

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