1979 film by Robert Benton
Kramer vs. Kramer is a 1979 American legal drama written and directed by Robert Benton, based on Avery Corman's 1977 novel of the same name. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Justin Henry and Jane Alexander. 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.
Kramer vs. Kramer explores the psychology and fallout of divorce, and touches on prevailing or emerging social issues, such as gender roles, fathers' rights, work-life balance, and single parents.
Kramer vs. Kramer was theatrically released December 19, 1979, by Columbia Pictures. The film emerged as a major commercial success at the box-office, grossing more than $173 million on an $8 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1979 in the United States and Canada. It received widespread critical acclaim upon release, with high praise for its direction, story, screenplay and performances of the cast, with major praise directed towards Hoffman and Streep's performances.
Kramer vs. Kramer receiving a leading 9 nominations at the 52nd Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor (for Henry) and Best Supporting Actress (for Alexander), and won a leading 5 awards – Best Picture, Best Director (for Benton), Best Actor (for Hoffman), Best Supporting Actress (for Streep) and Best Adapted Screenplay. At the 37th Golden Globe Awards, the film received a leading 8 nominations, including Best Director (for Benton), Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture (for Henry) and Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture (for Alexander), and won a leading 4 awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama (for Hoffman) and Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture (for Streep). It also received 6 nominations at the 34th British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Direction (for Benton), Best Actor in a Leading Role (for Hoffman) and Best Actress in a Leading Role (for Streep), but failed to win any.
Plot
Ted Kramer, a workaholic advertising executive in New York City, has just landed an important account and job promotion. However, when he shares the news with Joanna, his wife of eight years, she shocks him by announcing she is leaving him. She walks out of the apartment without Billy, the couple's seven-year-old son, because she feels she is unfit to be a mother. The next morning when Billy asks about his mother, Ted explains that she went away to be alone for a while.
Ted drops Billy at his elementary school by asking him what grade he attends and leaving him with a woman at the entrance, before rushing to work. At the ad agency, Ted confides about the situation to Jim O'Connor, his boss and friend. Jim is understanding, but hopes that Ted's situation will not interfere with his new responsibility as the lead person on the Mid-Atlantic Airlines account.
Initially, Ted and Billy struggle to adapt to their new living situation as Billy misses his mother and Ted has to do the extra housework usually done by Joanna. Father and son gradually settle into a routine without Joanna, but Ted's work suffers. Billy and Ted have a fight one evening in which Billy cries for his mother, but they later reconcile. When Billy worries his mother's departure is his fault, Ted assures him that Joanna left because she was not happy in the marriage.
Meanwhile, Ted has become good friends with divorced neighbor Margaret Phelps, whom Joanna was confidantes with. One day, Billy has an accident when he falls off a jungle gym. Ted rushes him to the hospital, and asks the doctor to let him stay by his son's side as he receives ten stitches.
After fifteen months, Ted receives a call from Joanna and meets her at a restaurant. Joanna reveals she is happier after working in California and seeing a therapist. When she states that she is now ready to raise her son and wants Billy to come live with her in California, Ted becomes furious and leaves. He consults with divorce attorney John Shaunessy, who cautions that the court usually awards custody to the mother when the child is young.
At work, Jim notifies Ted the agency is letting him go because the Mid-Atlantic Airlines executives are displeased with his work. Knowing he has no chance at custody if he is unemployed, Ted doggedly tries to land a job within twenty-four hours, despite few ad firms hiring during the holiday season. He convinces two agency executives to consider his application immediately, and accepts a lower-salaried position for which he is overqualified.
The custody hearing begins. In court, Joanne asserts that Ted never abused her or was unfaithful, but she lost her self-esteem as a stay-at-home mother. She insists she has since "become a whole person again" and believes her son needs her more than his father. Ted states he has proven that he can parent as well as Joanna, and insists that taking Billy away from him could cause "irreparable" harm.
The legal battle becomes contentious when the attorneys resort to brutal character assassinations. Shaunessy brings Joanna to tears by forcing her to admit that she was part of the marriage's failure. Ted also admits he made mistakes as a father and husband. However, his job loss and Billy's accident are used to discredit him. Ted expresses resentment at Joanna for her attorney's aggressive tactics. Margaret testifies on behalf of Ted and implores Joanna to recognize that he has become a great father.
Later, Ted learns Joanna was awarded custody. He decides not to appeal in order to spare Billy the burden of testifying in court. Billy becomes upset as Ted explains that they will still see each other, even though Billy will be living with his mother. On the morning Joanna is scheduled to pick up Billy, she rings the apartment building's intercom and asks to see Ted in the lobby alone. She tearfully reveals that she is relinquishing custody after realizing that she does not want to take Billy away from his home. Ted reassures her as she takes the elevator up to inform her son.
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 film. Dustin Hoffman was the only actor they envisioned in the lead role of Ted Kramer.[2]
Hoffman, going through a divorce at the time, initially turned down the role.[3] 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.[4] Al Pacino was offered the role, but felt it was not for him.[5] Jon Voight also turned down the role.[2] Hoffman met with Jaffe and Benton at a London hotel during the making of Agatha (1979), 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".[2]
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.[6] Benton encouraged Henry to improvise to make his performance more natural.[3] The ice cream scene in which Billy defies Ted by skipping dinner and eating ice cream was all improvised by Hoffman and Henry.[citation needed] Hoffman contributed many personal moments and dialogue; Benton offered shared screenplay credit but Hoffman declined.[7]
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.[8] The part was offered to Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda and Ali MacGraw before Meryl Streep was cast.[9]
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.[9] Hoffman believed 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.[9] Streep was contracted to work only 12 days on the film.[10]
Gail Strickland was first cast as Ted's neighbor Margaret, but departed after a week of filming (due to "artistic differences", according to Columbia Pictures), and was replaced by Jane Alexander.[3] 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.[9] Strickland disputes this account, saying she couldn't quickly memorize improvised lines Hoffman gave her, which agitated him, and she was fired two days later.[9]
Cinematographer Néstor Almendros, a collaborator on numerous François Truffaut films, had been hired with the expectation that Truffaut would direct.[11] Truffaut turned it down, as he was busy with his own projects, and suggested screenwriter Robert Benton direct the film.
JoBeth Williams worried about disrobing in the scene with a young Justin Henry. "I was afraid my nudity would traumatize the little boy," she said, but was relieved that he seemed unbothered.[12]
Controversy
Hoffman has been widely reported to have harassed Streep during the making of the film, and the two had a contentious working relationship.[9][13] In a 1979 Time magazine interview, Streep claimed that Hoffman groped her breast on their first meeting, although a representative for Streep said the article was not "an accurate rendering of that meeting".[14] When Streep advocated portraying Joanna as more sympathetic and vulnerable than she was written, she received pushback from Hoffman.[9] Such was his commitment to method acting,[15] 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.[16] 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."[9] In 2018, Streep claimed that Hoffman slapped her hard without warning while filming a scene. "This was my first film, and it was my first take in my first film, and he just slapped me. And you see it in the film. It was overstepping."[17]
Reception
Kramer vs. Kramer received widespread critical acclaim upon release, with high praise for its direction, story, screenplay and performances of the cast, with major praise directed towards Hoffman and Streep's performances.
The film holds an 89% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 101 reviews, with an average score of 8.20/10. The consensus reads: "The divorce subject isn't as shocking, but Kramer vs. Kramer is still a thoughtful, well-acted drama that resists the urge to take sides or give easy answers."[18] It has a score of 77 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on nine reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[19]
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."[20]
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."[21]
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".[22]
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."[23]
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."[24]
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 (1979) so mawkishly failed".[25]
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."[26]
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 would have considered the wishes of the child. Another criticism was that the option of joint custody was never explored.[27][28]
In 2003, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.[29]
Box office
Kramer vs. Kramer grossed $5,559,722 in its opening week from 534 theaters.[30] It went on to gross $106.3 million in the United States and Canada.[31][32] In its first 13 weeks overseas, it grossed more than $67 million.[33] 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).[34]
Cultural impact
Kramer vs. Kramer reflected a cultural shift that occurred during the 1970s, when ideas about motherhood and fatherhood were changing.[2] 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.[20]
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.[35]
"Mon fils, ma bataille", the song 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 by the film Kramer vs. Kramer.[36]
