Post "Graduate" Study

The writer Ted Griffin ("Matchstick Men", "Ocean's Eleven") is from Pasadena where, if his romantic comedy "Rumor Has It…" is to be believed, "The Graduate" is something of a legend. The famed film about a young man's (Dustin Hoffman) affair with the mother (Anne Bancroft) of his love interest (Katherine Ross) was apparently based on a true story which took place in Pasadena. The conceit of Mr. Griffin's "Rumor Has It…" is that, 30 years later, the daughter of the family upon which "The Graduate" is based decides to uncover the truth. While that may seem like a thin thread on which to hang an entire movie (and it is), it's the uniformly likeable cast that propels it above the predictable retread it could have been.

Jennifer Aniston, the most successful of the small-to-big-screen "Friends", at first seems a bit at sea in her role as Sarah Huttinger, the woman who may or may not be the offspring of the Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross characters. Ms. Aniston herself comes off as such a strong woman that at first her whimpering insecurities seem put on for the sake of the film. But as she proved in the far superior "The Good Girl", there's a lot going on beneath that famous hair-do. Ms. Aniston's Sarah is the heart of the film and she makes us understand what she's searching for.

As Beau Burroughs, the man who Dustin Hoffman would apparently have become, Kevin Costner shows us he's still got it - turning in one of his most charismatic, self-assured performances. It's easy to see why three generations of women in the film go ga-ga for this guy.

But the real energy of the film comes from Shirley MacLaine who, in brilliantly channeling Anne Bancroft, creates one of her best characters since Aurora Greenway. Somehow Ms. MacLaine manages to add just the right amount of Mrs. Robinson to her already blustery persona. She not only gives you the idea that this is Mrs. Robinson years later, but you can also see why she was probably such trouble years ago.

While I wouldn't call this a "return to form" for director Rob Reiner (it's unclear for a while even in what year the film takes place), it's certainly his most watchable movie in years. Mr. Griffin's script is knowing without being pretentious (in a wink to the famed "plastics" advice from "The Graduate", Beau - a Silicon Valley tech guru in the mid-90s - is repeatedly harassed about search engines).

While Mr. Griffin never really does anything new or interesting with his high-concept premise, the cast keeps us watching. Only the affable Mark Ruffalo, so good in "You Can Count On Me", is stuck in the role of the hapless boyfriend. "Rumor" definitely has something, alright. And that something is a charming, talented cast. In this case, that's about enough.