Forget The Idea of You, Best Age-Gap Romcom Was Already Made in the 60s
Here’s the origin of Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson!
The Idea of You, focusing on a love story between the single mother and the band’s frontman, has blown up Prime Video ’s Top 10. Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine’s hit film dominates the chart for a whole month, and here’s why.
This top-tier romcom explores the possibility of romance between people with significant age differences. Of course, such a leitmotif is nothing new in cinema, as we saw Carol (2015), Licorice Pizza (2021) and May December (2023). However, the most cultish film following the same topic was released long before The Idea of You, in 1967.
Its plot revolves around Benjamin Braddock, a 21-year-old college graduate with no plans for the future. Ended up doing nothing at his parents' house, he gets unexpectedly seduced by an older woman, Mrs. Robinson, who is tired of her household and marriage.
Soon enough Benjamin falls for another woman, who turns out to be his lover’s daughter, Elaine Robinson. Thus, he embarks on a journey to figure out what to do not only with his growing feelings for her, but also with his life and coming of age.
Although the line with the age-gap romance is not the main one in the movie and here it presumably serves as comic relief, there are some curious speculations about this issue. It gets even more captivating when a younger girl gets in the way of this affair.
It is the cast who makes this all work the best way possible. Benjamin is here portrayed by the young Dustin Hoffman, delivering a performance that is both goofy and hilarious and at the same time convincingly deep while showing the man’s inner conflicts. He is accompanied by Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross as two of Robinson's women.
All of you know the song Mrs. Robinson by Simon & Garfunkel, and yes, it was written for this particular movie, titled The Graduate. Besides, it concludes featuring another iconic song by the rock duo, The Sound of Silence, and it adds to its wholesomeness.
“I think I saw this for the first time when I was 14, around 1972. Still one of my favorite movies over 50 years later,” says Redditor @Most-Artichoke6184 about this timeless film.
Check out The Graduate, as it’s available for streaming on Netflix , Prime and Apple TV+ .