Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) Paramount Pictures 📢 Director: Robert Benton 💰 Producer: Stanley R. Jaffe 👫 Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Justin Henry, Jane Alexander. 🏆 Awards ceremony: -52nd Academy Awards: April 14, 1980. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, California. 🎭 Other films nominated for Best Picture this year: -All That Jazz. -Apocalypse Now. -Breaking Away. -Norma Rae. 📕 Plot summary: Ted Kramer (DUSTIN HOFFMAN) is an overworked advertising executive with a company in New York. On the day he is offered a promotion he returns to his apartment to find his wife Joanna (MERYL STREEP) walking out on their marriage and leaving their 7 year-old son Billy with him. Forced to adjust to being a single parent, the impatient Ted adapts to becoming a father to his son as their relationship grows. Months later Joanna returns and enters into a custodial fight for Billy: hence the legal battle of 'Kramer vs. Kramer'. 💥 Standout scene(s): The breakfast scene with Dusty making French toast for his son and then losing his temper; the scene where Billy falls from the apparatus in the park; Dusty smashing the wine glass in the restaurant and Meryl Streep's genuine surprised reaction... I could go on and on. 🔑 Facts: -The 52nd Academy Awards. -Nominated for 9 Academy Awards, it won 5: Best Picture, Director, Actor (Dustin Hoffman), Supporting Actress (Meryl Streep), Screenplay (adapted). -Second Best Picture starring Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy). -Second successive Best Picture starring Meryl Streep (The Deer Hunter). 🙂 Personal opinion: As powerful dramas go, this one is top of the pile; completely faultless and I cannot think of one bad word to say about it. It's absolutely compelling and brilliantly acted (I honestly think this was Dustin Hoffman's finest performance in all of his movies), with Meryl Streep - the greatest actress ever in my opinion - winning her first Oscar too. The film deliberately allows us to have sympathy for Dustin Hoffman's character as he embarks upon a new journey of discovery about his own impatience (the French toast scene, for example) and parenting skills as he adapts to a new lifestyle and him becoming a much more attentive father. As a result, we want to see Meryl Streep's character as the bad guy, somebody who walked out on their child and doesn't deserve to win a custody battle for him after her act of selfishness. Keeping her out of the film for almost half of it is really clever too because it gives us just enough time to decide we dislike her but it then generously affords us the shame in realizing there are two sides to the story - the side we didn't want to hear about: hers. It's exactly Joanna's point! Her feelings during the marriage didn't matter and she was never heard. But now we are forced to hear what it was that drove her to do what she did and I think that is a masterpiece in film-making to be able to make such an incredibly powerful point like that. Joanna getting absolutely roasted under cross-examination during the custody hearing, and Ted's impeccable line; "I'd like to know, what law is it that says a woman is a better parent simply by virtue of her sex?" There is a break in the intensity with a couple of brilliant scenes such as Billy stealing the ice cream despite his father's instruction not to touch it! ("Don't you dare!") And this is after Billy refuses to eat his dinner and enquiring 'what is this crap?' (which made me laugh). That whole sequence is pure GOLD. Try to hold your emotions in check when you see/hear this scene: -Billy (crying): "I want my mummy" -Ted (angrily): "I'm all you've got". The simple fact of the matter is, this movie is brilliant with one powerful scene following the last, and that's to say nothing about the dramatic twist ending too! Emotional, powerful and just 100% deserving of every one of the 5 Academy Awards it bagged. The running time of 105 minutes is also perfect. Can't go without making note of Justin Henry's (Billy) brilliant performance too. For a young kid of his age, he is tremendously convincing. Absolutely highly recommended. Did it deserve the Oscar? ✅YES. One of the most perfect movies I have ever seen in my life. Not a single thing wrong with it. Seriously, how many films can you say that about? 10/10

Review date: 30 March 2025