Those who like dry humor, to the point of stale humor, should watch The Graduate. It is somewhat uncomfortable, subtle, strange. A lot of this movie happens in between the lines. My favorite joke were the songs they chose to play and when. They certainly give a sense of foreshadowing. When it was over, I was left saying, "...huh. Well that was weird."
It has a great ending. Which summarizes the entire feel of the movie.
Silver Linings Playbook is a lot more accessible and modern. The production is more easy to watch. I did not laugh out loud nearly as much, but it has a more dramatic feel to it.
The Graduate involves some pretty complex and common themes. Graduating from college and then discovering you have absolutely no idea what to do with yourself being a prime one. It deals with poor decisions in a fun and frank way such as: if you make bad decisions you might not come out on top of them in the end. A bad decision, if it is a doozy, can have some pretty lasting effects on your outlook. Don't fuck around on your family friends.
These are not themes in Silver Linings. It is fun, but it is not particularly complex. It does not really deal with the drama it covers. It mentions them and then glides on by. Its plot is exactly (spoiler!) what a modern Hollywood flick requires, it proceeds just how you would expect and winds up all hunky dory in the end. It is not a vapid movie, however. Here the characters and the family dynamics are what make the movie. Their life exceeds that of the satirical personas of The Graduate.
One of these films is about crazy people. Consequently lively characters. One of these films is about upper-middle to lower-upper wealth people who are far more crazy than the crazy people. Suggesting, to me, that graduating from college does not necessarily mean that you are a good and upstanding person. It reminds me of a study I was told of long ago.
The study (which I was not able to find specifically, but there are some along the same lines) suggested that the standards and the practices in some venerated universities created a criminal mentality in their students. By only passing a certain percentage and failing the rest, no matter how bright, students had to aggressively compete against each other. Willfully putting aside their compassion for their fellow students to make sure that they were the one who passed.
And then, by extension, you have a society that isn't so worried about the pain and frustration of their fellow man, or of their future man, as long as things seem to be going their own way now.
The ending of The Graduate makes the film for me. I love a good ending, one that's a little ambiguous, doesn't imply an ending (because real life never ends), but does close the story appropriately. I was supplied.
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