Character Analysis
A First Date at a Strip Club That…Works Out?
Benjamin falls in love with Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross), a girl he knew in high school but didn't like very much. Oh, he's also having an affair with her mother.
Cue: conflict.
Other than the fact that Katharine Ross was sweetly gorgeous, we don't know much about Elaine, even by the end of the film. We know she's a sensitive, good kid; she's embarrassed to the point of tears by the goings-on at the strip club. When Benjamin tries to explain why he's been such a jerk, she gets it. She feels like an outsider herself, and they can bond over that shared feeling of anxiety about their futures. She doesn't like living by other people's rules, either.
Elaine's family is a lot like the Braddocks—dad's an attorney, mom stays at home drinking and having affairs with 21-year-olds. Oh, wait. Maybe they're not like the Braddocks (unless there's a side-quel called Mrs. Braddock we don't know about). The Robinsons are unhappy, but the film doesn't develop an idea of how growing up in that family has influenced Elaine's character. We only get a hint of that in the wedding scene, when it's only after looking at her parents' angry faces that she seems to decide to run off with Benjamin.
What's Love Got to Do with It?
Before she meets Ben, Elaine's on a typical path for an affluent young daughter of a professional family. She's at a great college and is dating a frat boy that her parents approve of. She's not involved in the radical political scene at Berkeley and we don't see any evidence of drugs. Maybe she's wanted to rebel, but she hasn't. The date with Ben shows us that behind her good-girl persona, there's a young woman who's been questioning the premises of her life.
But until the last scene, all this does is to make her hugely ambivalent about everything. Her default emotional state seems to be confusion.
BENJAMIN: Will you marry me? …You won't?
ELAINE: I don't know.
BENJAMIN: But you might?
ELAINE: I might.
BENJAMIN: Is that so? You might marry me?
ELAINE: Yes.
Think about these facts: first, Elaine's considering marrying a guy that she's spent hardly any time with, most of it while he's stalking her at college. Second, she's considering marrying a guy she knows had an extended sexual relationship with her mother. She's also considering marrying another guy as well.
In addition to the fact that she's considering marriage to Benjamin and Carl, it's important to note that she's considering marriage, period; one of those old-fashioned institutions that make up the bedrock of the life she wants to reject.
Did we mention she's 19 years old?
How can we make sense of it? Is this evidence that Elaine and Ben share a true love that conquers all those inconvenient facts, particularly the he-slept-with-my-mother fact? Either she's the most open-minded person on the planet or something else is going on. She's allowed herself to be roped into marrying Carl, at her parents' insistence we're to assume, but do you buy that? What little we learn about Elaine in the film makes us think that she's a smart young woman who can think for herself and refuse an "arranged" marriage.
Audiences back then had no problems with it. They thought it was great. The two of them find each other and, against insurmountable odds, run off together even though she just married another guy. So what? Love conquered all, right?
The last two scenes make you wonder, though. When Elaine looks up to see Ben behind the glass, calling her name, she slowly walks towards him, looking bewildered. But it's not until Nichols cuts to shots of first Mrs. Robinson's then Mr. Robinson's sneering, disapproving faces, and Elaine sees them contorted with rage at her, does she call out to him. What would have happened if they'd been sympathetic?
And then there's the final scene on the bus after the initial excitement of their escape quickly fades, and Elaine looks at Ben expectantly. His face is expressionless and her smile fades as well.
Our trenchant conclusion? Elaine wants to rebel but part of her is still attached to the kind of life her parents have. Ben is the stimulus that can jump-start her into what she imagines will be a different life. By disclosing his own similar hopes and dreams and pursuing her so relentlessly, she thinks maybe this is her big chance. Who can resist a guy who crashes your wedding and carries you off? Especially when your parents are freaking out about it? We guess you can call that love.
Elaine's Timeline