Kramer vs. Kramer

(1979)

Directed by

Robert Benton

Review by Zach Saltz

Posted - 1/24/10

Robert Benton’s Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) is remembered today as a dated, late-1970s cautionary tale questioning the legal partiality in family courts towards mothers in cases of child custody.  Indeed, in the climatic courtroom scene at the end of the movie, Ted Kramer, half of the titular squabbling pair, asks boldly, “What law is it that says a woman is a better parent simply by virtue of her sex?”  Although Kramer vs. Kramer contains more moments for the audience to sympathize with Ted rather than his ex-wife, Joanna, the movie never really solves the question.  Ted is shown as a loving and caring father who considerably rearranges his life to ensure the well-being and safety of his 7-year-old son, Billy.  In most cases involving custody of minors, the father has left the mother.  In the case of Kramer vs. Kramer, it is Joanna who leaves her husband and son, and is absent for most of the picture.

Thus, on the surface, Robert Benton’s film appears to have little greater motivation than to simply prove that daddies can be just as good as mommies as long as they occasionally put on an apron, make some play dates with other tikes in the park, and mouth the lines in the school play from across the front aisle that little Billy has forgotten.  If this were true of the film, it would qualify as a minor success; indeed, the scenes of bonding between Ted and Billy are undeniably affecting, and Dustin Hoffman and little Justin Henry deserve to be commended for creating a compelling and realistic rapport between father and son.

But Benton and screenwriter Avery Corman are too smart to make Kramer vs. Kramer that one-dimensional.  They know that in life, unlike the movies, characters are not always good or always bad, but the best ones act in ways that try to make others’ lives easier. At the beginning of the movie, Ted is presented to be a hotshot graphic designer who favors a late-night drink with his boss to coming home for dinner.  He justifies his addiction to work by repeating the phrase, “Someone has to bring home the bacon.”  When Joanna (played by Meryl Streep) succinctly informs him that she is leaving him, he is too busy making a call into the office to even register what she has said.  When Ted pleads with her as she gets in the elevator to leave the complex, she tells him that if she goes back into the apartment and stays, she will someday jump out the window.  Domestic life is so suffocating and Streep is such a good actress that suddenly leaving behind her husband and child seems like the least she could do.

Ted at first is skeptical that Joanna has really left.  “I never thought this would happen to me,” he laments to his boss the next day.  Indeed, though Ted is presented as a good man who works hard and provides a good home life for his family (though this is suddenly thrust into doubt), his central flaw is one of self-absorption.  Through the course of the next hour of the movie, Ted loses all traces of hubris and learns to be a selfless, caring father who stops at nothing to provide for Billy in a way he never could before his wife left him.  Work is put on hold so that Ted can get home early to pick up his son from a party.  When Billy is injured at the playground, Ted runs him to the hospital.  Like Schindler’s List and The Lives of Others, Kramer vs. Kramer is centrally concerned with the transformation of the seemingly inflexible main character – a transformation that occurs slowly and steadily until a crucial climatic moment when the character is asked to stand up for what he really believes in.  By the time Ted affirms his beliefs later in the picture, there is no question of his devotion to Billy over work; the only question that remains, as Joanna fights for custody of her son, is whether Ted has done enough to prove that he is the “superior” parent.  Of course, for a seven-year-old child, the concept that one parent is more fit than the other is utterly absurd, and by the time the trial begins, the audience starts to believe this too.

There are so many good scenes in Kramer vs. Kramer that it is difficult to pinpoint the best ones.  There are two that I can think of that reveal the heart and soul of both the movie and the motivations of Ted.  The first occurs when Billy tests the boundaries of Ted’s patience by disobeying and devouring a scoop of ice cream for dinner.  A fight ensues, and Billy is left in his room sobbing.  Later, Ted comes back to the room and with Billy half-asleep, reveals that Joanna left because of the way he tried to make her, not because of Billy.  This is a great moment of self-realization, and is illustrative of the amazing lengths Ted has gone in understanding why his relationship with Joanna has failed.

The second scene takes place when Ted, having been fired from his job, frantically seeks to find employment during the Christmas holiday.  The desperation is present and the odds seemed to be stacked firmly against him, but he shows no traces of this, coolly walking into a firm during its Christmas party and offering his services in a “one-day deal.”  This is where Ted’s self-absorption appears to have come around full circle; he is no longer concerned about mobilizing himself upwards in his work, but only cares about having a job (even with a significant pay cut) in order to fight for custody of his son.  Hoffman’s timing, subtle facial expressions, and firm grasp of the situation reveal an actor at the top of his game in a masterful, deserved Oscar-winning performance.

Indeed, the performances in Kramer vs. Kramer are all-around excellent.  This is not a movie of lengthy speeches or bouts of screaming directed upwards towards the heavens, but of quiet, fleeting moments of nuanced observation and attention.  Hoffman, Streep, and young Henry deeply embody each of the characters they play, and the individual relationships between each of them are real and utterly compelling.  Ted and Billy gradually build a trust and love for each other that is never broken even through myriad struggles.  The love between Billy and Joanna is clearly present even though Joanna is not.  And Ted and Joanna are only shown as a married couple for the first several minutes of the film, but by the end, we know everything we need to about their relationships.  Credit the performers and the remarkable script for making all these things possible.

All too often in movies about divorce, the stories are not taken seriously and relegated to the naïve perspective of the child.  In Kramer vs. Kramer, Billy is almost a secondary character, and even though Ted’s and Joanna’s respective transformations and aggressive court battle are entirely motivated by the parental concern of “what’s best for Billy,” Benton and Corman are entirely motivated by examining what brings people to the edge of desperation – so much to the point that they are forced to make radical changes in their lives. Even the courtroom scenes, which could have easily been plebian and melodramatic in the hands of inferior talent, are handled with grace and subtlety.  After all, no couple ever wants to end up in court, and the somber faces of Ted and Joanna illustrate regret and even a bit of tenderness toward each other.  One of the most sincere moments of the film comes when Ted’s belligerent attorney cruelly asks Joanna if she was a failure as a parent and as a wife.  She turns toward Ted, who smiles softly and gently shakes his head, mouthing the word, “no.” 

Such honest and unmanipulative moments reveal why Kramer vs. Kramer works so well as a study of a broken family where isolated remnants of love still remain, and of a man who learns to become the man he should have been all along.  This is far more than just a “divorce” movie – it is about living, transforming, and losing faith only to have it restored again by acting squarely in interests of those you love.

Rating: