Kramer vs. Kramer

''Kramer vs. Kramer'' is a 1979 American legal drama film written and directed by Robert Benton, based on Avery Corman's 1977 novel of the same name. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander, and Justin Henry.
It tells the story of a couple's divorce, its impact on their young son, and the subsequent evolution of their relationship and views on parenting.

The film explores the psychology and fallout of divorce and touches upon prevailing or emerging social issues such as gender roles, women's rights, feminism, fathers' rights, work-life balance, and single parents.

''Kramer vs. Kramer'' was theatrically released on December 19, 1979, by Columbia Pictures. It was a major critical and commercial success, grossing over $173 million on an $8 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1979 in the United States and Canada and receiving a leading nine nominations at the 52nd Academy Awards, winning five (more than any other film nominated that year); Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Hoffman), Best Supporting Actress (for Streep), and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Plot

Workaholic New York City advertising executive Ted Kramer has just signed a very important account and been promoted. Sharing the good news with his wife Joanna, he learns that she is leaving him and their son Billy. Ted and Billy initially resent one another as Ted no longer has time for his increased workload, and Billy misses his mother. Ted and Billy eventually learn to cope and bond.

Ted befriends his neighbor Margaret Phelps, in whom Joanna had confided. As a fellow single parent, she and Ted become kindred spirits. As the two sit in the park watching their children play, Billy falls off the jungle gym resulting in a gash to his face. Ted runs several blocks through traffic carrying Billy to the hospital, where he comforts his son during treatment.

Fifteen months after walking out, Joanna returns from California to claim Billy, and a custody battle ensues. Neither Ted nor Joanna are prepared for the brutal character assassinations their lawyers unleash. While on the witness stand, Margaret is compelled to confirm she had advised an unhappy Joanna to leave Ted, though she also attempts to tell Joanna that her husband has profoundly changed. Ted's firing from his job and Billy's accident are brought up to discredit Ted.

The court awards custody to Joanna. Ted wants to appeal, saying he will pay any price, but when his lawyer advises that the price would be to put Billy on the stand he says he cannot do that and decides not to contest custody.

On the morning that Joanna is to collect Billy, Ted and Billy make breakfast together. Joanna calls on the intercom asking Ted to come down to the lobby alone. There, he tells Ted how she had been wishing she had painted Billy's room in her new home like his old one. Though she loves Billy very much, she states that his true home is with Ted. She then tearfully enters the elevator to talk to Billy one last time, and when she asks Ted how she looks, he replies, "Terrific".

Cast

* Dustin Hoffman as Ted Kramer
* Meryl Streep as Joanna (Stern) Kramer
* Justin Henry as Billy Kramer
* Jane Alexander as Margaret Phelps
* Petra King as Petie Phelps
* Melissa Morell as Kim Phelps
* Howard Duff as John Shaunessy
* George Coe as Jim O'Connor
* JoBeth Williams as Phyllis Bernard
* Howland Chamberlain as Judge Atkins
* Dan Tyra as Court Clerk

Production

Producer Stanley R. Jaffe and writer and director Robert Benton read Avery Corman's source novel and were so moved by the story that they bought the rights to make it into a movie. Dustin Hoffman was the only actor they envisioned in the lead role of Ted Kramer.

Hoffman, himself going through a divorce at the time, initially turned down the role. He has since stated that at that time he had wanted to quit film acting and return to the stage due to his depression and distaste for Hollywood. While Jaffe and Benton were courting Hoffman, James Caan was offered the role but turned it down as he was concerned the film would be a flop. Al Pacino was offered the role but felt that it was not for him. Jon Voight turned down the role. Hoffman met with Jaffe and Benton at a London hotel during the making of '' Agatha'' and was convinced to accept the role. Hoffman has credited Benton and this film for rejuvenating his love of film acting and inspiring the emotional level of many scenes. Hoffman was reminded of his love for children and "got closer being a father by playing a father."

Benton and Jaffe selected Justin Henry to play Billy. Hoffman worked extensively with Henry, then 7 years old, in each scene to put him at ease. Benton encouraged Henry to improvise to make his performance more natural. The famous ice cream scene where Billy defies Ted by skipping dinner and eating ice cream was all improvised by Hoffman and Henry. Hoffman contributed many personal moments and dialogue; Benton offered shared screenplay credit but Hoffman declined.

Kate Jackson was offered the role of Joanna Kramer but had to turn it down as producer Aaron Spelling was unable to rearrange the shooting schedule of the TV series ''Charlie's Angels'', in which Jackson was starring. The part was offered to Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda and Ali MacGraw, before Meryl Streep was cast.

Streep was initially cast as Phyllis (the role eventually taken by JoBeth Williams), but she was able to force her way into auditioning for Joanna in front of Hoffman, Benton, and Jaffe. She found the character in the novel and script unsympathetic ("an ogre, a princess, an ass", as she called her) and approached Joanna from a more sympathetic point of view. Hoffman believed that the death of Streep's fiancé, John Cazale, only months earlier, gave her an emotional edge and "still-fresh pain" to draw on for the performance. Streep was only contracted to work 12 days on the film.

Gail Strickland was first cast as Ted's neighbor Margaret, but departed after a week of filming (according to Columbia Pictures due to "artistic differences") and was replaced by Jane Alexander. Michael Schulman claims Strickland was so rattled by the intensity of filming with Hoffman that she developed a stammer, making her lines difficult to follow. Strickland herself disputes this account, saying that she couldn't quickly memorize improvised lines that Hoffman gave her, which agitated him and she was fired two days later.

Cinematographer Néstor Almendros, a collaborator on numerous François Truffaut films, had been hired with the expectation that Truffaut would direct. Truffaut turned it down as he was busy with his own projects, and suggested screenwriter Robert Benton direct the film himself.

JoBeth Williams was hesitant about shucking her clothes, especially in the scene with a young Justin Henry. "I was afraid my nudity would traumatize the little boy," she said.

Controversy

Hoffman has been widely reported to have harassed Streep during the making of the movie, and the two had a contentious working relationship. In a 1979 ''Time'' magazine interview, Streep claimed that Hoffman groped her breast on their first meeting. When Streep advocated portraying Joanna as more sympathetic and vulnerable than she was written, she received pushback from Hoffman. Such was his commitment to method acting, he would hurl insults and obscenities at Streep, taunt her with the name of her recently deceased fiancé, John Cazale, claiming it was designed to draw a better performance from her. He famously shattered a wine glass against the wall without telling her (although he did inform the cameraman beforehand), sending glass shards into her hair. Her response was: "Next time you do that, I'd appreciate you letting me know." Hoffman slapped her hard without warning while filming a scene, she said in 2018: "This was my first movie, and it was my first take in my first movie, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the movie. It was overstepping."

Reception

''Kramer vs. Kramer'' received positive reviews from critics. It holds an 89% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 99 reviews, with an average score of 8.20/10. The consensus reads: "The divorce subject isn't as shocking, but the film is still a thoughtful, well-acted drama that resists the urge to take sides or give easy answers."

Roger Ebert of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' gave the film four stars, giving praise to Benton's screenplay: "His characters aren't just talking to each other, they're revealing things about themselves and can sometimes be seen in the act of learning about their own motives. That's what makes ''Kramer vs. Kramer'' such a touching film: We get the feeling at times that personalities are changing and decisions are being made even as we watch them." Vincent Canby of ''The New York Times'' called it a "fine, witty, moving, most intelligent adaptation of Avery Corman's best-selling novel," with Streep giving "one of the major performances of the year" and Hoffman "splendid in one of the two or three best roles of his career." Gene Siskel of the ''Chicago Tribune'' gave the film four stars out of four and wrote, Kramer vs. Kramer' never loses its low-key, realistic touch. You will sit at the end of the film wondering why we don't see more pictures like this. After all, its story is not all that unusual." He thought that Hoffman gave "one of his most memorable performances" and "should win the Academy Award next April." ''Variety'' wrote, "Stories on screen about men leaving women, and women leaving men have been abundant as of late, but hardly any has grappled with the issue in such a forthright and honest fashion as 'Kramer' ... While a nasty court battle ensues, the human focus is never abandoned, and it's to the credit of not only Benton and Jaffe, but especially Hoffman and Streep, that both leading characters emerge as credible and sympathetic." Charles Champlin of the ''Los Angeles Times'' declared it "as nearly perfect a film as can be" and "a motion picture with an emotional wallop second to none this year." Gary Arnold of ''The Washington Post'' called the film "a triumph of partisan pathos, a celebration of father-son bonding that astutely succeeds where tearjerkers like '' The Champ'' so mawkishly failed." Stanley Kauffmann of ''The New Republic'' wrote "All the people go through expected difficulties the way that runners take the hurdles in a track event: no surprise in it, it's just a question of how they do it. But the actors make it more."

Shortly after the film's release, ''The New York Times'' and ''Time'' magazine published separate articles in which members of the bar and bench criticized the court battle scenes as "legally out of date." According to the legal experts interviewed for the articles, a modern judge would have made use of psychological reports and also considered the wishes of the child; another criticism was that the option of joint custody was never explored.

In 2003, ''The New York Times'' placed the film on its ''Best 1000 Movies Ever'' list.

The film grossed $5,559,722 in its opening week from 534 theatres. It went on to gross $106.3 million in the United States and Canada. In its first 13 weeks overseas, it had grossed over $67 million. It went on to become Columbia's highest-grossing film overseas with theatrical rentals of $57 million until surpassed in 1990 by '' Look Who's Talking'' (released by Columbia TriStar internationally).

Cultural impact

''Kramer vs. Kramer'' reflected a cultural shift which occurred during the 1970s, when ideas about motherhood and fatherhood were changing. The film was widely praised for the way in which it gave equal weight and importance to both Joanna and Ted's points of view.

The film made use of the first movement of Antonio Vivaldi's Mandolin Concerto in C Major, making the piece more familiar among classical music listeners.

The song, ''Mon fils, ma bataille'', about a painful divorce and a father's struggle to keep custody of his child, was inspired by Daniel Balavoine's parents' divorce, his guitarist Colin Swinburne's divorce and also by the film Kramer vs. Kramer (1980).

Awards and nominations

;American Film Institute Lists:
* AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated
* AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated
* AFI's 10 Top 10 – #3 Courtroom Drama

Adaptation

In 1990, the film was remade in Turkish as ''Oğulcan'', directed and acted by Cüneyt Arkın, in Hindi as ''Akele Hum Akele Tum'' in 1995, starring Aamir Khan and Manisha Koirala and in Urdu as ''Zindagi Kitni Haseen Hay'' in 2016 starring Sajal Ali and Feroze Khan.

See also

* Trial film

Explanatory notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kramer Vs. Kramer
1979 films
1979 drama films
1970s legal films
1970s American films
American legal drama films
Best Drama Picture Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
Columbia Pictures films
American courtroom films
1970s English-language films
Films about dysfunctional families
Films about lawyers
Films based on American novels
Films directed by Robert Benton
Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award-winning performance
Films featuring a Best Drama Actor Golden Globe winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New York City
Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
Films with screenplays by Robert Benton
Films about divorce
Films about father–son relationships
Films about parenting