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Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9780800106034 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC ISBN: 0800106032 Label: Sony Pictures Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Sony Pictures Release Date: December 07, 1992 Running Time: 105 minutes Sales Rank: 15496 Studio: Sony Pictures Theatrical Release Date: December 19, 1979
Amazon.com essential video: Winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Actor, and Screenplay, Kramer vs. Kramer remains as powerfully moving today as it was when released in 1979, simply because its drama will remain relevant for couples of any generation. Adapted by director Robert Benton from the novel by Avery Corman, this is perhaps the finest, most evenly balanced film ever made about the failure of marriage and the tumultuous shift of parental roles. It begins when Joanna Kramer (Meryl Streep) bluntly informs her husband Ted (Dustin Hoffman) that she's leaving him, just as his advertising career is advancing and demanding most of his waking hours. Self-involvement is just one of the film's underlying themes, along with the search for identity that prompts Joanna to leave Ted with their first-grade son (Justin Henry), who now finds himself living with a workaholic parent he barely knows. Juggling his domestic challenge with professional deadlines, Ted is further pressured when his wife files for custody of their son. This legal battle forms the dramatic spine of the film, but its power is derived from Benton's flawlessly observant script and the superlative performances of his entire cast. Because Benton refuses to assign blame and deals fairly with both sides of a devastating dilemma, the film arrives at equal levels of pain, growth, and integrity under emotionally stressful circumstances. That gives virtually every scene the unmistakable ring of truth--a quality of dramatic honestly that makes Kramer vs. Kramer not merely a classic tearjerker, but one of the finest American dramas of its decade. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - We've come a long way
I saw Kramer vs Kramer in DVD a few days ago and thougth that it didn't age very well. The first part is a flawless drama about how the perfect yuppie life changed to Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman), after his wife decided to leave him with their small son Billy (Justin Henry) so she can find herself.
Hoffman is wonderful: charming, vulnerable; the kid is cute an cries like a pro, and Meryl Streep is perfect as the unhappy young mother. New York City is beautiful and it's easy to emphasize with the dilemmas of mother, father and child; but when it comes to the part when it becames a courtroom ... Read More
Rating: - A poignant tale of growth and parenthood that still brings tears today...
There are many films about the deterioration of the marriage arrangement, but very few of them can reach the levels of emotional attachment that `Kramer vs. Kramer' manages to grasp hold of. To say that `Kramer vs. Kramer' doesn't still resonate today is a miscalculation if you ask me, for even if the eventual result is softer and or more delicate than is often the case in reality, there is so much truth in every frame that one can't help but draw comparisons to similar situations today.
The film tells the story of Ted Kramer, a successful advertising executive who just landed a huge ... Read More
Rating: - Not aging well.
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 ... Read More
Rating: - Another key cultural artifact
"Kramer vs. Kramer" is a perfect artifact that speaks to the discourses of the men's movement and the women's movement.
Rating: - "Sometimes Mommy and Daddy Don't Get Along"
This is great work for several reasons. Hoffman (an art director) is trying to get his company a major contract. He comes home late to trealize that his wife (Streep) is leaving him and thus leaving him in charge of their preteen son Billy. We can infer that at least one reason was Hoffman's over involvement in his job. (Having no time for her) We are permitted some sympathy for Streep. At this time, divorces were becoming more and more common.
This movie seems to be a reaction against the concept that the mother was always the better parent if a choice had to be made. (One is entitled to wonder ... Read More
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