Mike Nichols

The movie follows a hard-drinking, womanizing Texas congressman who, along with a CIA agent, drove the funding of Afghan guerillas in the 1980s to beat back the Soviet invasion.

Dan (Jude Law) is a young writer walking down a street in downtown London. He spots a young woman (Natalie Portman) with short red-dyed hair walking in the opposite direction and they make eye contact and begin to smile at one another. Not being used to cars driving on the left side of the road in the UK, she steps into traffic after looking the wrong way and gets hit by a car. Dan runs to her side and she looks up and says "Hello, stranger." She isn't badly hurt (aside from a bruised left knee and some cuts and bruises), and Dan takes her to the hospital where they start to get to know each other. As they're leaving the hospital, they pass by a park that Dan remembers from when he was little. They pass a wall and notice that it has the names of firemen, policemen, or anyone else who has given their life to save another person. They get on the bus and continue their conversation. We learn that Dan is a wanna-be writer who daylights as an obituary writer. The young American woman introduces herself as 'Alice Ayres'. She claims that she is a stripper from New York City who has come to London to leave a bad relationship. They finally arrive at Dan's office. He says goodbye and starts to leave and then turns around. When asked if he has a girlfriend, he says "yes". One Year Later. Dan is having his photo taken in a small artist studio by Anna (Julia Roberts). Dan and Alice are living together, and Dan has written a novel about his romantic life with Alice. Anna is taken his photo for the dust jacket of his recently published book. Anna is an American photographer who mainly takes portraits of strangers. She mentions that she likes to go to the aquarium and possibly take photos of people there. She reveals to Dan that she's currently separated from her husband. He learns that shes read his book and likes it. They kiss one another and she learns that he's got a girlfriend and the book is based on her. She ends the kiss at the point, while he's professing that he likes her a lot and needs to see her. She tells him to get over it. At this point the doorbell buzzes and its Alice, who has come to meet Dan having just gotten off her job at a local coffee shop. He lets her up to the studio where she and Anna meet (Note: Alice's hair is slightly longer and is now in its natural medium brown color). Alice asks Anna to take her photograph and Dan leaves so the two of them can be alone. She begins to take her photo and Alice reveals that she heard their conversation on the intercom when she was downstairs. She turns away and Anna begins to apologize. Alice turns back with tears in her eyes and yells at Anna to take the picture. A little later, Dan is in his apartment on his computer. He's in a sex chat room and has logged on as a woman for a joke. He meets another man on the web whose name is Larry (Clive Owen). He's a dermatologist and a sex addic logging on while at work. When he asks Dan for a name, he tells him 'Anna'. They write some hot and heavy stuff back to one another and Dan offers to meet Larry in person as a joke. He tells him to meet him at the aquarium. Larry goes there the next day and Anna is there as a coincidence. He approaches her and they discover that Dan has played a joke on him. He's embarrassed, she's amused, and they start to hit it off. Four months later. Dan and Alice are getting ready to go to Anna's art exhibition. We also learn that Dan's father has just passed away, and Dan is going to the funeral in the countryside after the art exhibition. Alice wants to go with him and support him, but he wants to be alone. They go to the exhibition and see the photo that Anna took of Alice with tears in her eyes. While Alice is looking at it, she meets Larry. They have a brief discussion where Alice and Larry have a mild flirtation, and she learns that Larry and Anna are dating when she comes over and greets Larry. During the conversation between the four of them, Dan is clearly still infatuated with Anna, and she tells him and Alice how she and Larry met, and that they call him 'cupid'. We also learn that Dan's book failed and he is once again an obituary writer. A little later, Dan puts Alice in a taxi cab outside the building, pretending that he's heading straight to the funeral, when actually he goes back to talk to Anna again. Another Year Later. Dan comes into his apartment at first telling Alice that he's been at a business dinner. Finally, he admits that he's been seeing Anna and that they've been having an affair since the evening at the art exhibition. At the same time, Anna is in her apartment with Larry. They are married now and Larry has just returned from a business trip. She doesn't tell him anything at first. Larry says he can't stand lying to her and admits that he slept with a prostitute on his trip. She simply tells him it's OK and then it comes out that she's been having an affair with Dan. Larry is furious and asks her why she bothered to marry him. She says she tried to end it with Dan when she and Larry decided to get married, but it started up again. Larry wants explicit details about her and Dan and she gives them to him. He's furious and tells her to leave. Back at Dan's apartment, Alice is heartbroken and in tears. Dan tries to comfort her and apologizes for hurting her. She leaves the apartment and he has no idea where she's gone. Six Months Later. Larry enters a strip club for a drink and he spots Alice, who's working there as a stripper wearing a skimpy top, G-string and a pink wig. He arranges a private dance with her in room. She gives him one willingly. Afterwards, she flirts and smiles and tells him her name is 'Jane Jones' as part of the act. Larry is torn up about his recent divorce proceedings from Anna and gets frustrated that Alice plays with him and won't take him seriously. He says he wants to sleep with her and she tells him "no". Then he asks for a more intimate look at her, she does what he asks. A Few Months Later. Anna is rushing to meet Dan at a music concert. She apologizes for being late. They sit to have a drink and we learn that she met Larry earlier in the day to have him sign the divorce papers. A few moments later, Dan guesses that Anna slept with Larry that day, and he was right. A flashback shows the meeting earlier, and Larry saying that he will sign the divorce papers if she'll sleep with him one last time, she agrees. Anna says she did it to end the whole thing and that all Larry got was her body. Dan is still upset. Another Few Months Later. Dan storms into Larry's office and angrily reveals that Anna has left him and is back with Larry. Dan tries to confront him and claim that this is all Larry's fault, when Larry reveals that Anna never did file the divorce papers. She is back with Larry because she's doomed to be in rocky relationships because she's a depression junky, but he loves her all the same and wants to be with her. Larry is at first angry with Dan and then begins to pity him because Dan is truly heartbroken and starts to cry. He tells Dan to go back to Alice, and Dan reveals that he doesn't know where she is. Larry tells him about the strip club and assures him that he didn't sleep with Alice when he saw her there. As Dan is leaving, Larry tells Dan that in truth, he did sleep with Alice. Dan goes to the strip club and sees Alice dancing on the stage. They both make eye contact with each other and seem to appear happy to see each other once again. Alice and Dan are in a hotel room near Heathrow Airport. They seem really happy together. She's planning to return to New York and has decided to take him with her as a treat. Alice notes that this is the day when they first met on that London street corner which was four years ago, and Dan remarks how time flies by so fast. Dan asks Alice if she slept with Larry, and she tells him that she didn't. He demands to know the truth. Eventually he leaves the room to get cigarettes and asks Alice for the truth when he gets back. He turns around on his way out and returns to Alice with a flower. She tells him that she's not in love with him anymore. She tells him she stopped loving him just now because he kept pressing about Larry. Finally she admits the truth: she and Larry did sleep together that night after they ran into each other at the strip club. Dan tells her he has known all along and has forgiven her already. He tells her that it doesn't matter and he loves her, but she's fed up and tells him to leave. She starts yelling at him and he slaps her. Shocked by this outburst of violence, Dan leaves the hotel room. Alice arrives back in New York by herself. At the same time, Dan has remained in London. He passes the park from the first day they met and notices one of the names on the wall is 'Alice Ayres'. Back in New York, when "Alice" is going through immigration, we see that her real name on her passport is Jane Jones (the name she had given Larry when he had pressed her for her real name in the strip club). Jane/Alice walks down a busy street in New York, and then she crosses a street against the "Don't Walk" signal, reminding us of the opening scene when she carelessly crossed a street in London, was struck by a taxi, and met Dan. Nonetheless, she is back in her home country, to face an uncertain future... alone.

A human-looking alien from a highly advanced but emotionless all-male society is sent to Earth to impregnate a woman and bring the child back to their planet. The alien ends up falling in love there. A suspicious F.A.A. Agent targets him. When the leader Graydon of a highly developed civilization without emotion and composed only by asexual men reproduced by cloning decides to invade Earth, he sends his best student, Harold Anderson, to impregnate a woman. He is fitted with a humming penis and uses the identity of a banker in Phoenix. Harold is clumsy with women until he meets the promiscuous and alcoholic Susan in an AA meeting and she tells him that she will only have sex when she gets married. Harold proposes Susan to get married with him to get in her pants, and when she says that she is pregnant, he has some emotion. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration agent Roland Jones suspects that Harold is an alien. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil A highly advanced civilization, whose citizens feel no emotion and reproduce by cloning, plans to conquer Earth from the inside by sending an operative, fashioned with a humming, mechanical penis, to impregnate a human and stay until the birth. The alien, Harold Anderson, goes to Phoenix as a banker and sets to work finding a mate. His approaches to women are inept, and the humming phallus doesn't help, but on the advice of a banking colleague, he cruises an A.A. meeting, meets Susan, and somehow convinces her to marry him. The clock starts to tick: will she conceive, have a baby, and lose Harold (and the child) to his planet before he discovers emotion and starts to care? —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

The film opens with a performance at the Birdcage, a nightclub situated in South Beach, Miami. The club is owned by Armand Goldman, a gay Jew in a relationship with the club's star Albert, who performs as a drag queen. Armand's son Val returns from college with an announcement: he is getting married to a schoolmate, Barbara Keeley, whose father Kevin Keeley is a conservative politician from Ohio who founded the Coalition for Moral Order, and who is seeking reelection. The problem is that Barbara hid the truth from her parents - she informed them that Val's father is a cultural attaché for Greece and that Val's mother is a housewife, and that their last name was Coleman. The Keeleys, meanwhile, are in the midst of their own crisis: Keeley's co-founder for the Coalition, Senator Jackson, died of a heart attack while in bed with an underage black prostitute. This event makes headlines, and gets the Keeleys swamped with hordes of reporters and threatens to ruin their political position. Kevins wife Louise proposes that they go to see Val's parents, who they believe are a traditional wholesome family, as a double measure to both avoid the reporters and to restore their impeccable public image. They set off, but are being tracked by a couple of reporters, who are themselves tracked by competing reporters... Val begs his father to go along with the charade, and after some deliberation he concedes. They both set to work remodeling their apartment into a more austere and simple home, and dress up the flamboyant gay manservant Agador as a butler/cook. Less simple is asking Albert for support; an effeminate, temperamental and sensitive partner, he is offended at Armand and Val asking him to be absent due to his obvious gayness, and when he tries to act like a heterosexual he fails miserably. With no other choices, Armand and Val decide to call upon Val's birthmother Katherine, a former showgirl who left Val with Armand and ran off to become a businesswoman. Asking Katherine is the last straw for Albert and he decides to go to a cemetery; Armand calms him down and reaffirms their devotion by giving him partnership of the Birdcage. The Keeleys arrive, and the night starts off fairly well, with only a few hiccups. Unfortunately, Katherine, who was supposed to join the party, gets stuck in traffic. Unexpectedly Albert dresses up as a woman and takes her place, to the horror of Armand and Val; bizarrely his masquerade works successfully and Kevin is even smitten with Mrs Coleman and her liberalness, much to Louise's indignation. However, both Kevin and Louise start to suspect that the Colemans are hiding something, especially when they are served an awful mishmash soup made of all sorts of ingredients (including hardboiled eggs), and notice that the plates hold pictures of men in disturbing poses... Katherine finally arrives, and everything falls apart: Kevin and Louise find out that Val's parents are gay Jewish nightclub owners, and they decide to leave immediately. But they discover a mass of news crews outside who tracked them down, and duck back in. Although the Keeleys have warmed up to their in-laws, they are now trapped inside and for them to appear in the presence of such people would finish their political careers. Albert hits on a brilliant scheme: he dresses the Keeleys up in drag and gives an impromptu performance, and as the show goes on Katherine successfully gets the Keeleys out of the Birdcage without any interception from reporters. The film ends with Val and Barbara getting married, in an interfaith ceremony presided by both a rabbi and priest, attended by Kevin and Louise, Katherine and Armand and Albert.

Will Randall (Jack Nicholson), an editor-in-chief of a large, New York City publishing house, is driving home to Manhattan from Vermont on a cold March night. The road is quite dark and icy and he hits a large wolf with his car. While he inspects the wolf's body and tries to drag it off the road, the uninjured wolf, playing dead, suddenly bites him and trots off. Will walks slowly back to his car, noticing that several other wolves are watching him in the woods nearby, their yellow eyes glowing in the dark. Will makes it back home to his penthouse and his wife, Charlotte. He ends up sleeping for some 20 hours, waking up only when Charlotte comes home in the evening. They have dinner together and Will becomes very passionate with her, to her sly delight. When he returns to his office, he notices that his sense of smell is greatly enhanced; he can smell tequila on a coworker's breath as he passes him and hear every conversation going on among the office's other employees. Will is also able to edit a manuscript quickly and without his glasses. Will's new boss, Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer), a rich tycoon who has bought the publishing house, throws a lavish dinner party at his Long Island estate. He tells Will that he's demoted as chief editor and his replacement will be Will's protégé, Stewart Swinton (James Spader). Raymond offers Will a job as editor in Easter Europe. While stalking away from the meeting with Raymond, Will gets too close to a few prized horses Raymond is showing and they become spooked. Will also feels pain in his chest like a heart attack and is forced to sit down near a guest house. While he recovers, he meets Alden's headstrong daughter Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer), who is polite but sullen and withdrawn. She comforts him with a glass of liquor and firmly rebuffs Will's advances. Will rejoins Charlotte and Stewart and genially congratulates the latter on his promotion. Stewart, feigning incredulity, claims he had no knowledge of Raymond's decision until right before the party. Will and Charlotte drive home, both seething over the turn of events. At home later, with Charlotte out of town for work, Will takes several deep sniffs of a robe. He becomes very agitated and goes to Stewart's apartment. Steward lets Will in the building, tries to grab him to talk to reason with him and Will bites him viciously on the arm. Will jumps up the grand staircase to Stewart's apartment with seemingly superhuman agility and finds Charlotte there. Will stalks off without another word, leaving his wife unharmed. Will checks into Manhattan's Mayflower Hotel. The next day he consults his secretary Mary (Eileen Atkins) and his assistant Roy (David Hyde Pierce) and plots to draw his and Roy's clients into a new firm with new investors, a move that Will hasn't backed up with a shred of truth, much to the admiration of Mary and Roy. Will drives out to Raymond's estate again to tell him he's turning down the position in Eastern Europe. While leaving, Will sees Laura again, riding a horse nearby. The horse is spooked when it sees Will and throws Laura off. Raymond suddenly appears and, upon finding out that Laura is unharmed, takes another opportunity to slag Will, saying that he doesn't approve of Laura getting involved with Will. She turns down her father's offer of lunch and takes Will back to the guest house she's staying in. The two talk over peanut butter and jelly and wander around the estate. Will tells her about his encounter with the wolf and how he believes he might be becoming one. He feels sick again and lays down in her house while she tends to him. During the night he wakes up, clearly showing characteristics of a wolf and bounds out, hunting down a deer and killing it. In the morning Will finds himself on the bank of a stream, with blood all over his face and hands. He leaves immediately and sees his doctor, who tells him he's fine. Laura, believing Will had left her cold, refuses to take Will's calls. Will visits Dr. Vijav Alezais (Om Puri), a professor specializing in the supernatural. Alezais tells him that the wolf that bit Will was not a true werewolf but a demon wolf that simply passes the spirit of an animal on to it's victims. He also suggests that this spirit can be transmitted to another person simply through passion and that not all wolf spirits are evil, they are manipulated by the nature of the individual. The professor gives Will an amulet to protect him from turning completely into a wolf. Alezais also asks Will to bite him, as Alezais does not have long to live, and would prefer "demonization to death." After refusing, Randall keeps the amulet so that he won't transform at the next full moon. Calling Laura to explain, Randall, now a wolf, breaks into the Central Park Zoo and steals handcuffs from a policeman (David Schwimmer) who tries to arrest him. In another area of the park, muggers want his wallet, but he attacks and leaves one of them alive. He wakes up in his hotel, with no memory of what happened. Will outmanoeuvres Raymond and Stewart with his threat of stealing the publishing house's biggest authors. He finagles a new contract that will let him stay editor-in-chief and grant him a larger salary and greater authority. Raymond also grants him the opportunity to fire Stewart. The two meet in the men's room and although Stewart begs Will for a second chance, Will still fires him, urinating on his shoes. While washing his hands, he finds fingers in his handkerchief and realizes he killed someone, at least one of the muggers in Central Park. Will's biting of Steward when he discovered his affair with Charlotte has consequences. Stewart attacks and kills Charlotte and sets about framing Will for the murder. Will, who believes he's become too dangerous, handcuffs himself to the radiator in his hotel room and waits for Laura to arrive. She frees him against his objections and Will finally puts on the amulet Alezais had given him. The two spend the night together, having sex. The next day they both hear about Charlotte's murder and Will insists Laura take him to her father's estate and lock him in the horse stables. Laura gets a call from a Detective (Richard Jenkins), the chief investigator of Charlotte's death. He tells her that canine DNA was found on Charlotte's body. Alarmed, Laura goes to the police station. There she runs into Stewart, who makes an animal-like pass at her. Laura hurries away, making arrangements for her and Will to leave the country. Stewart follows her, viciously kills the two security guards on the property and attacks Laura, trying to rape her in front of Will in the stables. Will tears off the amulet, succumbs to the full power of the wolf and escapes confinement, attacking Stewart. The two fight ferociously until Stewart is shot to death by Laura when he tries to stab Will with a pair of garden shears. Will and Laura stare at each other, Will is frightened to touch her due his monstrous state. She looks at him with a loving glance and takes his hand but he still runs off, hiding in the woods where he makes a final transformation. Later, Jenkins arrives. Laura shows heightened senses while talking to the detective and the police that accompanied him, telling the detective that she can smell vodka on his breath. The final scene is a close-up of her face fading into dark, lupine eyes, and a close up of Will completing his transformation into a full werewolf.

After being shot, a lawyer loses his memory and must relearn speech and mobility, but he has a loving family to support him. Henry is a lawyer who survives a shooting only to find he can't remember anything. As if that weren't enough, he also has to recover his speech and mobility, in a life he no longer fits into. Fortunately, he has a loving wife and daughter to help him. —Rob Hartill Henry Turner is a despicable and ruthless trial lawyer whose life is turned upside down when he is shot in the head during a robbery. He survives with significant brain damage and must relearn how to speak, walk, and function normally. He has also lost most of the memory of his personal life, and must adjust to life with the family that he does not remember. To the surprise of his wife and daughter, he becomes a loving and affectionate man. —Denny Gibbons

Actress Suzanne Vale leaves rehab only to be made to live with her movie star mother. Stuck together, the jaded starlet and silver screen has-been struggle to find common ground.

A group of young recruits go through boot camp during the Second World War in Biloxi, Mississippi. From the play by Neil Simon. New York City teenager Eugene Jerome starts military service thoughtfully yet patriotically prepared to take part in World War II. At boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi, he faces the brutally opposed views of other recruits, which he must live with. Still they must bind, if not bond, facing the sadistic drill sergeant during their physically ruthless and mentally abusive training, which is heading for tragedy. Meanwhile, their boyish minds wander often to sexual frustrations, from obsession with potency (and escaping virginity) to prejudice against gays. Armed only with his sense of humor, Eugene is determined to leave camp with everything he came with. —KGF Vissers New York City teenager Eugene Jerome enlists in the United States Army and is sent to basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi during the last year of World War II. Expecting the army to be dolls, donuts and USO dances, he instead encounters a sadistic drill sergeant and a platoon of often hostile recruits. He learns the hardships of war through boot camp, to accept other people's differences, falls in love and loses his virginity to a prostitute. Armed with only his sense of humor, he is determined to leave camp with everything he came with, as he and the other recruits must endure the rigorous training and abuse from their instructor. —Jason Ihle <jrihl@conncoll.edu>

She's a magazine writer who gives up her career for love and family. He's a playboy newspaper columnist who can't quite give up his old tricks. And if that combination doesn't give a relationship Heartburn, nothing will. An autobiographical look at the break-up of screenwriter Nora Ephron's marriage to Carl "All the President's Men" Bernstein that was also a best-selling novel. The Ephron character, Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep), is a food writer at a New York City magazine who meets Washington, D.C. columnist Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson) at a wedding and ends up falling in love with him despite her reservations about marriage. They buy a house, have a daughter, and Rachel thinks they are living happily ever after until she discovers that Mark is having an affair while she is waddling around with a second pregnancy. —Lisa Todorovich Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep) and Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson) meet at a mutual friend's wedding, go to bed, and get married shortly afterwards. She works in publishing in New York City, and he is a successful Washington, D.C. columnist, who is always using his friends and social life as material for his column. All goes well initially with the marriage, despite the fact they endure several months of renovation by incompetent builders on their Washington, D.C. house. A child is born, Mark proves himself a fond father, and another baby is soon on the way. Then Rachel discovers that Mark has been having an affair with one of their circle. Heavily pregnant, she briefly returns to her father's house in New York City. Mark comes after her. He says he loves her and asks her to return to him. —Tiff Banks

Two bumbling hustlers in the 1920s attempt to gain the fortune of an heiress. Nothing will stop them, not even murder. The early 1900s with its Mann Act (disallowing women to be transported across state lines for immoral reasons) brings a married man to devise a scheme for taking his upper-class girlfriend away with him. He simply has her marry his unmarried buddy. However, it doesn't take very long before both men start laying claim to her affection. Until, that is, she's about to be cut out of her parents' fortune. So, a new scheme is devised, which only adds to their problems, as well as to the sly whimsy of this movie. —BOB STEBBINS <stebinsbob@aol.com> It's sometime in the 1920s, when it is illegal, as per the Mann Act, for a man to transport a woman across state lines for immoral purposes, which is what married Nicky Stumpo wants to do with Freddie Bigard. Since he can't marry her himself for that purpose of crossing the state line, Nicky instead enlists his friend Oscar Sullivan, who is trying to evade the local police for embezzlement, to marry Freddie instead. The three, who plan to live together, will masquerade as an extended family under assumed surnames, Freddie and Oscar indeed married, with Nicky Freddie's brother, while behind closed doors Oscar will be the platonic third wheel in Nicky and Freddie's love nest. Although he is purportedly doing it for love, Nicky really wants access to Freddie's money, she being an heiress to a fortune about which Nicky tries to convince Oscar is untrue. The situation becomes more complicated with the combination of Oscar wanting to have his own way with Freddie, as he also does confirm Freddie's own personal wealth, and as Freddie informs her husband and "brother" that she plans on giving away her money. As such, Nicky and Oscar figure the only thing they can do to reach that goal of getting her money is to do away with her permanently - making it look either like suicide or an accident - which is easier said than done in how hapless they are as murderers. —Huggo

The film explores the life of 21-year-old Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) shortly after earning his bachelor's degree from an unnamed college in the Northeast. The school is widely believed to be Williams College, Webb's alma mater (in the opening sequence of the movie, Dustin Hoffman, playing Benjamin Braddock, is wearing a Williams College tie). Benjamin is seen arriving at LAX International Airport over the opening credits. The movie really begins at a party that same evening celebrating his graduation at his parents' house in Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles. Benjamin is visibly uncomfortable at the party attended by his parents' friends. He remains aloof while his parents deliver accolades and neighborhood friends ask him about his future plans. Benjamin escapes from each person who comes to congratulate him, exposing his seeming embarrassment at all the honors he had won at college. Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), the neglected wife of his father's law partner, asks Benjamin to drive her home, which he reluctantly does. We never learn Mrs. Robinson's first name (or, indeed, the first names of any of Benjamin's and Elaine's parents) during the course of the film (in the novel, we are told that the initial of Mrs. Robinson's first name is G). Arriving at her home, she pleads for Benjamin to come inside, saying that she doesn't like to enter a dark house alone. Once inside, she forces a drink on him, and later exposes herself to him offering to have an affair with him. This scene, known as the "Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me" scene, as said by Benjamin, is said to be one of the most iconic scenes in the film. She, for no clear reason, does attempt to seduce him, removing her clothing. Mr. Robinson arrives home a few minute later, but does not see or suspect anything. Initially flustered and shocked by her advances, Benjamin flees into the night. A few days later Benjamin contacts Mrs. Robinson and clumsily organizes a tryst at a hotel beginning their affair. A now confident and relaxed Benjamin spends the summer drifting around in the pool by day and seeing Mrs. Robinson at the hotel by night. Benjamin is clearly uncomfortable with sexuality, but he is drawn into the affair with the older, but still attractive, Mrs. Robinson. Their affair appears to last most of the summer. All of their scenes pass in a musically-backed montage, showing the endless pass of time. One scene is edited so that it appears Benjamin is walking directly from his parents' dining room into the hotel room he shares with Mrs. Robinson. This seems to accent the separation of he and his parents, though they still live under the same roof. Benjamin discovers that they have nothing to talk about but, she refuses to talk and only wants sex. After pestering her one evening, Mrs. Robinson tells Benjamin that she was forced to give up college and marry someone she didn't love when she became pregnant with her daughter Elaine. Meanwhile, Benjamin is hounded by his father to select a graduate school to attend. Benjamin, clearly not interested in pursuing his studies, shrugs off his father's wishes and spends his time lounging about and sleeping with Mrs. Robinson. His affair may serve as an escape from his lack of direction or ambition, and his fear and anxiety of his impending future. Mr. Robinson, unaware of his wife's budding affair, encourages Benjamin to call on his daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross). Benjamin's parents also repeatedly encourage him to date her. During one liaison, Mrs. Robinson forces a promise from Ben to never date Elaine. Whether out of fear of Mrs. Robinson, or sensing that getting involved with the daughter of his lover could be disastrous, he tries to avoid it. However, because of the three parents' persistent intervention, he is essentially forced to date her. Therefore, he tries to ensure his date with her will be a disaster so she would not want to pursue a relationship with him. He drives recklessly, practically ignoring Elaine, and then takes her to a strip club where she is openly humiliated and silently begins to cry. After making her cry he relents and explains he was mean only because his parents forced him to ask her out. He awkwardly kisses her to try and cheer her up and they go and get a burger at a drive-in. Benjamin discovers that Elaine is someone he is comfortable with and that he can talk to her about his worries. From here, Benjamin's life falls apart. The jealous Mrs. Robinson threatens to reveal their affair to destroy any chance Benjamin has with Elaine, so Benjamin rashly decides he has to tell Elaine first. Upset over hearing about Benjamin's tryst with her mother, Elaine returns to Berkeley refusing to speak with Benjamin. Benjamin decides he is going to marry Elaine in order to have a future with her and goes to Berkeley where he rents a room in a local flop house, and begins to stalk her. He contrives a meeting on a bus while she is on her way to a date with her classmate Carl. The next day, an angry Elaine bursts into Benjamin's room and demands to know what he is doing in Berkeley after he "raped" her mother by taking advantage of her while she was drunk that evening of his graduation party. Shocked by what Elaine said, Benjamin tells her it was her mother who seduced him that night, but Elaine refuses to believe him and doesn't want to hear the fact that her mother is a crafty vixen. Benjamin says he will leave Berkeley and go somewhere else for her sake. Elaine tells Benjamin not to leave until he has a definite plan at what he wants to do with his life. The next day, Elaine comes into Ben's apartment in the middle of the night and asks him to kiss her. Over the next few days, the two hang out in Berkeley while Benjamin keeps pressing her to get blood tests so that they can get married. Elaine is unsure about this and tells him she had told Carl she might marry him. Mr. Robinson, who has found out everything about Benjamin and his wife's affair, goes to Ben's apartment in Berkeley where he threatens Benjamin with violence and forces Elaine to drop out of school and takes her away to marry Carl. Benjamin tells Mr. Robinson that his wife is the bad person and she manipulated him into having an affair with her. But Mr. Robinson also is skeptic and refuses to belive Benjamin. Benjamin is left with just a note from Elaine saying that she loves him but that her father is really angry and it can never work out. Benjamin drives back to Pasadena and arrives at the Robinson house that evening looking for Elaine. After getting no response by knocking on the front door, goes around to the back of the house and forces open a screen door. Benjamin quickly sees that Elaine is not there, but finds Mrs. Robinson instead. She coldly tells him he won't be able stop Elaine and Carl's wedding and she immediately calls the police and play-acts by claiming that a man broke into her house and is assaulting her. Finally seeing the sociopath that Mrs. Robinson really is, Benjamin flees and drives back to Berkeley to hide out there. The next morning, Benjamin goes to the Delta Chi Fraternity house to look for Elaine or Carl where he learns from Carl's frat brothers that the wedding is in Santa Barbara that very morning. Benjamin then speeds off towards Santa Barbara, stopping only at a gas station to ask for directions to the church. Benjamin is in such a hurry that he rushes off without refueling. Consequently, Ben runs out of gas and must sprint the last few blocks. He arrives at the church just as the bride and groom are about to kiss. Thinking he is too late, he bangs on the glass at the back of the church and screams out "Elaine!" repeatedly. Elaine turns around, hesitates by looking at her parents and her would-be husband, but then screams out "Ben!" and starts running towards him. A brawl breaks out as everyone tries to stop her and Benjamin from leaving. Elaine manages to break free from her mother, who claims "It's too late!" for Elaine apparently already said her marriage vows, to which Elaine replies, "Not for me!" Benjamin holds everybody off by swinging a cross ripped from the wall, then using it to jam the outside door while the pair escape. They run down the road and flag down a bus. The elated and smiling couple take the back seat. But in the final shot, Benjamin's smile gradually fades to an enigmatic, neutral expression as he gazes forward down the bus, not looking at Elaine. Elaine also seems unsure, looks lovingly across at Ben but notices his expression and turns away with a similar expression as the bus drives away, taking the two lovers to an uncertain future.

A film that rips the facade of civility off the dysfunctional marriage between an alcoholic college professor and his shrew of a wife during a dinner they host for a young couple.