Kramer vs Kramer Review

Tania Says:
This movie won Best Picture in 1979 and I can completely understand why. It is definitely a product of its time and of the changing world we were living in in 1979 (well – maybe I hadn’t been living in the world that long but from what I know about the time – it seems a good representation.)

Dustin Hoffman (who rules!) is an overworked father spending many hours at the office to bring home the bacon (his words, not mine). Meryl Streep is the oppressed wife whose only identity is that of a stay at home mom taking care of the kid and the house. Dusty comes home one day and is shocked to find out that Meryl is leaving and NOT taking the kid and poof – she is gone.

The story is then about Dustin turning into a real father and realizing the most important thing in the world is to take care of the kid. Of course, Meryl comes back and wants the kid and a courtroom battle ensues. It sounds dull in today’s society and it is a little slow but I can imagine that at the time a single father and a mother running off to “find herself” was something new and something that was starting to really happen in the world. The performances are certainly enough to keep the story interesting – especially Hoffman who has an amazing transformation over the course of the film which is pretty cool to watch. The kid (Justin Henry) does a fantastic job for a 6 year old. He and Hoffman share a real connection that grows over time.

Meryl Streep actually drove me crazy – well not her, but her character. I thought she was whiney and I got really frustrated when she was all wishy-washy and like, “I don’t want my kid, wait, now I want my kid.” Geez woman! Make up your mind – it’s a kid not a hamster! Now, I am not a mom but I can’t imagine a mom (or a dad really) just up and leaving their kid. And then I really can’t see why that mom should have any opportunity to even try to get the kid she abandoned back. Anyway – I am sure that is the reaction I was suppose to have and they got it out of me so I guess that was a victory.

I did like the movie though and was glad I watched it just for the Hoff alone!

Josh Says:
Not sure what to say (again) about this one. I liked it. I mean, it's a classic and it's classic for a reason, well, two reasons. Hoffman & Streep, but that's probably not news.

I guess the one thing that bugged me was the whole court case. It seemed that the Hoff either had an extremely bad lawyer, the Judge was a moron or (and most likely) both. I mean the whole case is about who is a better parent or whatever so to 'prove' that he's a bad parent, they show that he is screwing up at work over and over again BECAUSE HE MAKES THE KID A PRIORITY and the judge and Hoff's lawyers seem to be like 'oh yeah, good point, he's a bad worker" or whatever. COME ON.

The whole scene just seemed a bit to absurd to me.

I guess though that the idea is that the legal system and perhaps society as a whole are so predisposed to the concept of Mother's rights that even the most inane argument to that affect will be accepted so as to ultimately allow 'justice' to prevail and to reunite the Mom (no matter how flawed) with the kid.

The more I think about it, if that's the tone and premise of the movie, it seems at least somewhat likely that the writer was a mysoginist but that's probably going a few too many layers deep for our one reader (thanks mom!!!).

Oh yeah, one last thing. Though I think this movie was good, possibly even very good, I am appalled at the injustice perpetrated against the rightful Best Picture of 1979. Apocolypse Now was a far more revolutionary, ground breaking movie than this and easily should have prevailed.

*Edit: also - this movie doesn't have nearly enough Affleck. In fact, it gets a big ZERO Affleck points.