Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) is an advertising executive whose career means everything to him. In fact, it means so much to him that his wife Joanna Kramer (Meryl Streep) can no longer tolerate his behaviour anymore. Joanna leaves Ted and also leaves their 8 year old child in his care. However, Ted finds himself in new territory when he now finds that he has to struggle juggling both working full-time and looking after his son.
This is a film that for me will always be relevant - it's actually probably more relevant now than it was when it was made as divorce rates are probably higher now than they were in the 1970's. The film begins OK; Joanna leaves Ted and we find ourselves engaged when Ted is forced to actually take an active role in being a parent. It shows how much he relied on Joanna and clearly he took her for granted (of course he only realises how much she actually did after she left him). This is all fine to begin with, but the problem I had with this film is Joanna's disappearance for 15 months. 15 months? Really? What kind of mother would do that? I expected her to perhaps leave Ted with their kid for a few days possibly a week to give him a lesson in parenting, but I just couldn't accept that any rational parent would disappear for that long. Later in the film, Joanna does explain her reasons for going away, but I still didn't buy it. I don't care what anyone else says, abandoning your kid for that long is unacceptable!!
There are many things that this film gets right and one thing I did like about it is that it does, at least, represent both parents as being flawed individuals. It would have been very easy for the writers to put all the blame at the door of one of the parents, but this would have been both unfair and unrealistic. There are many humorous and heart-felt moments during the film - many of which involved Ted and his son. I'll admit that I was pleased that his son ended up bonding better with Ted towards the end.
Despite the fact that Ted was made out to be the villain of the piece at the start of the film, I personally found that I connected more with his character than I did with Joanna. I think the main reason for this is that I saw that he was flawed as a person rather than bad - look at the pressure he was under at work (even his boss kept telling him that his work is more important than his family - he didn't use those exact words, but it's quite clear that he wanted Ted to put his job before his family). Yes Ted should have remembered that blood is thicker than water, but at the end of the day he needed to keep his job to provide for his family. He made mistakes, but I actually liked his character. It perhaps would have been better if Joanna's character was developed better as we would have then got more of an insight into her characters thoughts/feelings and I would have then been able to connect to her character. However, her character is quite thinly written so it's actually impossible to do this.
Kramer vs Kramer is an enjoyable film that is funny and heart-felt and both Hoffman and Streep were excellent. It probably deserves a 7 or 8 out of 10, but I was so annoyed by Joanna's actions that I had to downgrade it to a 6 out of 10. It's still a film that I would whole heartedly recommend watching though.
This is a film that for me will always be relevant - it's actually probably more relevant now than it was when it was made as divorce rates are probably higher now than they were in the 1970's. The film begins OK; Joanna leaves Ted and we find ourselves engaged when Ted is forced to actually take an active role in being a parent. It shows how much he relied on Joanna and clearly he took her for granted (of course he only realises how much she actually did after she left him). This is all fine to begin with, but the problem I had with this film is Joanna's disappearance for 15 months. 15 months? Really? What kind of mother would do that? I expected her to perhaps leave Ted with their kid for a few days possibly a week to give him a lesson in parenting, but I just couldn't accept that any rational parent would disappear for that long. Later in the film, Joanna does explain her reasons for going away, but I still didn't buy it. I don't care what anyone else says, abandoning your kid for that long is unacceptable!!
There are many things that this film gets right and one thing I did like about it is that it does, at least, represent both parents as being flawed individuals. It would have been very easy for the writers to put all the blame at the door of one of the parents, but this would have been both unfair and unrealistic. There are many humorous and heart-felt moments during the film - many of which involved Ted and his son. I'll admit that I was pleased that his son ended up bonding better with Ted towards the end.
Despite the fact that Ted was made out to be the villain of the piece at the start of the film, I personally found that I connected more with his character than I did with Joanna. I think the main reason for this is that I saw that he was flawed as a person rather than bad - look at the pressure he was under at work (even his boss kept telling him that his work is more important than his family - he didn't use those exact words, but it's quite clear that he wanted Ted to put his job before his family). Yes Ted should have remembered that blood is thicker than water, but at the end of the day he needed to keep his job to provide for his family. He made mistakes, but I actually liked his character. It perhaps would have been better if Joanna's character was developed better as we would have then got more of an insight into her characters thoughts/feelings and I would have then been able to connect to her character. However, her character is quite thinly written so it's actually impossible to do this.
Kramer vs Kramer is an enjoyable film that is funny and heart-felt and both Hoffman and Streep were excellent. It probably deserves a 7 or 8 out of 10, but I was so annoyed by Joanna's actions that I had to downgrade it to a 6 out of 10. It's still a film that I would whole heartedly recommend watching though.