Origins of the Quarter-Life Crisis, Film Edition

Mike Nichols famous 1967 film The Graduate with a young Dustin Hoffman gave us an early glimpse of so much that now consumes our culture: not least, the roots of the cougar (here's to you Mrs. Robinson) and the quarter-life crisis.  At the end of the day, a more conventional and authentic romance replaces the movie's central, aberrant relationship between Hoffman's character and the seductress, Mrs. Robinson.  But there is no conventional answer to the nascent quarter-life crisis as society awakens, perhaps, from the slumber of what poet Robert Lowell called the 'tranquilized 50s.' One hears more and more talk of the quarter-life crisis--indeed, at least two individuals in our research group are taking up the topic--but to what extent is Hoffman's life our own? Perhaps we are just more vocal than unique in our little quarter-life crises.  We can, after all, blog about it!