[ “The dream is always the same,” and describing a panic dream

The difference between these two final images is night and day, like imagining “The Graduate” without the final shot of Benjamin and Elaine on the bus. That particular ennui—of achieving your dream and being thrust into the future you strove for—is the entire point.

And it had been telegraphed from the film’s first moments, as we hear Joel, in voiceover, saying “The dream is always the same,” and describing a panic dream about meeting a beautiful woman and then being unable to hang onto her, as he hopelessly navigates the fog of an endless path that he can’t deviate from. That, in a way, is the ultimate fear of all the main characters in the three ‘80s teen movies in the Criterion Collection.