I love the end of The Graduate. Actually, the whole movie is one of those that just gets better every time I watch it. Little things like the resignation with which Mrs. Robinson gets undressed after she and Ben fight. Great writing. Great acting. Great directing. That is, I reckon, what makes a classic, well, classic. The end is really fantastic though.
Somebody, I don’t know if it was a teacher, or a preacher, or a speaker, was talking about the way that the reality of what these two had done settles down upon them as they ride off into the sunset. They’re giggling like kids at first. They are kids. The fact that they are kids, that they don’t even know where this bus is going, seems to dawn on them. Sure, you’ve just embraced passion and romance in your life, but where are you going for dinner? And in that dress?
Maybe the question is not so much where they are going. The truth is that they are probably going back to Los Angeles. They may well be going to the kind of life neither of them could make sense of in the first place. Not that they are special in that respect. Plenty of us have no clue what we’re doing. Some of us, however, are lucky enough to be figuring it out with someone we’re passionate about. Passionate enough to do what ever it takes, including driving the length of California two or three times in 24 hours, to not lose our chance at romance.