Search - Kramer vs. Kramer on DVD

Not aging well.

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 07/18/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979)



Okay, I'll admit it, almost thirty years later I wanted to see Kramer vs. Kramer again solely for the JoBeth Williams scene. Yes, I am shallow. It's all I really remembered from the movie, other than Meryl Streep's "I make thirty-one thousand dollars" speech. And it's just as much fun this time around as it was when I originally saw the movie over twenty-five years ago. (I'm obviously not the only one who thinks so; the first keyword for the movie at IMDB is "nude wearing glasses".) I was reminded, however, of much of the reason I seem to have forgotten the rest of the movie, which has not aged well at all.



Ted (Dustin Hoffman) and Joanna (Meryl Streep) Kramer are married with child, Billy (Justin Henry). All is not well in casa de Kramer, however, and Joanna runs off to find herself, leaving Ted with Billy. Ted, who has spent much of his time working and very little of it with Billy, has to learn to connect with the lil' bugger while simultaneously learning to be a single parent. Nine months and one lost job later, that's finally happened-- and then Joanna shows back up and wants custody of her kid. Cue dirty custody battle.



As enjoyable as the movie is on the surface-- and I certainly won't deny that the film is as well-acted as one would expect from a cast that includes not only the above but a whole host of the seventies A-list-- but Benton, adapting Avery Corman's novel for the big screen, manages to work in just about as many single-parent clichés and stereotypes as he possibly can. (Whether they were present in the novel or magically appeared in the script, I don't know.) Sure, he plays them wonderfully-- the recurring French-toast theme, for example-- but that doesn't make them any less cliché or stereotyped. Oh, look, here's the doofus dad who knows nothing about parenting! At least the idiotic Mr. Mom made no bones about the fact that it was idiotic. Kramer vs. Kramer wanted to pass itself off as intelligent comedy-drama, and did so well enough that it scored a Best Picture Oscar back when such a thing actually meant something. (Assuming it ever did, your call.) These days, cast and all, I wonder whether this movie would even make it to the theaters, or whether it would be sentenced to the Lifetime Movie Purgatory-- err, Network.



Yes, it's certainly a watchable film, if dated nowadays, but in the slightly more enlightened society in which we now live, I hope the script's defects are a lot clearer to those watching it now. ** ½



"

Little victory.

Robert P. Beveridge | 08/27/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"1970's reconsideration of *The Champ* that is somehow more dated than that Thirties movie. Yes, I said dated: this movie hardly resonates today as much as might be supposed. Meryl Streep's housewife, searching for Personal Space and Inner Growth, belongs firmly to the early period of women's lib. Today, many mothers work: young women, watching this movie, might not understand what the fuss is all about. "Why doesn't she just get a job, if she's so bored?" they might ask. "Why quit on the marriage?" Granted, Dustin Hoffman's Kramer has insufferably chauvinistic assumptions early on in the movie, but as seen today, even that seems quaint, from another era. The whole of *Kramer vs. Kramer* is probably not equal to the sum of its parts, but those parts are pretty remarkable on their own, in particular the scene where Dustin Hoffman attempts to make breakfast for his son. (Although I think most kids would love French toast prepared in a coffee mug.) The charting of a father's growing acquaintanceship and engagement with his son has probably never been better demonstrated."