![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldIt was decidedly interesting to watch the 2005 film Rumor Has It ... and the 1967 classic movie The Graduate back to back this weekend. The Graduate deserves its classic status, not least for the acting and the cinematography that so superbly conveys Benjamin Braddock's confusions; Rumor Has It ..., though more comedic and light in tone, was an unfortunate casualty of the ongoing Jennifer/Brad/Angelina pop-cultural crisis, never less than competent and frequently laugh-out-loud funny.
The plot characteristic that most distinguishes Rumor Has It ... from its nominal prequel is its lack of existential crisis. In The Graduate, Benjamin is never not despairing or benumbed, Mrs. Robinson never hopelessly lost. Had The Graduate been filmed today, the angst would have ended as soon as the protagonists got their Prozac filled and their therapists' advice. That's the universe of Rumor Has It ..., where all of the characters' fundamental problems with reality are ironed out in the end by a renewed if critical embrace of tradition.
The plot characteristic that most distinguishes Rumor Has It ... from its nominal prequel is its lack of existential crisis. In The Graduate, Benjamin is never not despairing or benumbed, Mrs. Robinson never hopelessly lost. Had The Graduate been filmed today, the angst would have ended as soon as the protagonists got their Prozac filled and their therapists' advice. That's the universe of Rumor Has It ..., where all of the characters' fundamental problems with reality are ironed out in the end by a renewed if critical embrace of tradition.
