"The Graduate hit the bull's-eye for its time by alchemizing a literary catcher in the rye into a cinematic pitcher of the wry" (Sarris and Allen, Village Voice). This funny film that combines an homage to Fellini with Simon and Garfunkel still echoes with its best line-a word, really: "Plastics," spit into the face of Dustin Hoffman's Ben Braddock. Hoffman's deadpan demeanor is perfect for this Lost Boy who won't grow up and yet seems so old. Some critics had Ben pegged as one who had not quite graduated from the fifties: this is his sentimental education but not his Summer of Love. As he drives the wrong way over the Bay Bridge away from "plastics," poor Ben seems destined to miss out on the fun. But, as critic H. W. Schuth noted in an appreciation of Buck Henry, "In a Henry script the characters are so unaware and confused that (any) gaining of insight is truly monumental...." (in Int'l Dictionary of Films & Filmmakers)