This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.
There's a pattern in Hollywood stories about romance and passion.
The lovers may face all kinds of obstacles, but the movies end on a high note.
The couple kiss as the ball drops on New Year's Eve.
They embrace on a beach at sunset.
They celebrate at a wedding.
The 1967 movie The Graduate does something a bit different.
Benjamin Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman,
gate-crashes the wedding of his soulmate, Elaine Robinson, played by Catherine Ross.
He interrupts the ceremony and shouts, Elaine, from the balcony of the church.
After a moment of hesitation, Elaine shouts back,
and runs to him, rejecting her bridegroom and her parents' expectations.
The two escape the church amidst chaos,
with Elaine's family and the wedding guests trying to stop them.
The young couple fight off the crowd using a large wooden cross,
which Benjamin uses to block the church doors as they make their getaway.
Elaine and Benjamin then board a city bus sitting at the back together.
As the bus drives away, they initially laugh, exhilarated by their daring escape.
However, and this is where the movie veers from the Hollywood formula,
their expressions slowly shift to a more subdued and ambiguous tone.