I have always liked Dustin Hoffman's style of acting, in this movie he takes on a sexually deprived young male just out of college, and has never been with a female, and is duped by horny older woman that feels neglected. Dustin Hoffman takes the characters form of a young male, goofy, respectful virgin and intelligent male, missing something but not really sure at the beginning till Ann Bancroft coaxes him with seduction to fulfill her own needs. In an other movie called "The life of Little Big Man" he plays almost the same character but as a white child raised by the Native Americans and a wise old chief that deeply care and loves him as his own, and Fay Dunaway plays a Holy rollers wife that is older and sexually deprived and feeling neglected by her husband and also she goes through major changes in her life from devoted wife, to a honey bell/ house hooker, whats funny Dustin Hoffman is a awesome actor but has to have his surrounding characters bring his character to life. The Graduate was Dustin Hoffman's first big movie of his career. I actually liked movie "Little Big man" way better due to he went through major changes in his life, from being a Native boy warrior, captured by Yankees, meets Fay Dunaway who loves to give baths, to finding his sister who teaches him to be a gunslinger and then returns to his Grand Father to be a native again and tells his blind Grand Father the world of the white man is a crazy one, then his see the Psyho Col. Custer and gets his revenge by telling Custer the truth. The movie Little Big Man makes you laugh, teaches you things about people and survial and cry at times... its a must see... Although a stray away from the Benjamin Braddock written about in the novel The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman does an awesome job with this character on film. When you first meet Ben he is at a party that his parents are throwing in his academic honor upon his graduation from school and return home. The whole night, Hoffman stumbles though various conversations and tries to coyly escape from the festivities. Small things such as this Hoffman did a great job at, conveying the hesitance and crisis that Ben was going through as a graduate. There are multiple times in the movie he hardly expresses anything at all, yet it clearly shows you that Ben is having a very hard time internally with everything going on. Even through his relationships with Mrs. Robinson and her daughter Elaine you see the young man struggling with himself through either failed attempts at affection or lack thereof. .