Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

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Kramer vs. Kramer doesn’t make sense today if you watch it, because what used to be strange it’s now the normal.

If you see Kramer vs. Kramer now, in 2012, you don’t get that impressed. Especially the five or six academy award winning Oscars it received in 1980, one of them being for the best director. 6 awards.

It’s probably for the message it’s sent, feministic and probably changed a lot of marriages. It’s a movie starring Dustin Hoffman, a relatively young ad guy who work’s his way up to the company he works for. A small kid at home, a wife (Meryl Streep)… all the ingredients for a great future.

Well, it must be the fact that his wife is not happy with her life and decides to leave her husband and their young kind and try something different (something really courageous in those times still dominated by the man). Faced with the fact that he must handle his kid alone (drop him off to school, make him dinner, breakfast), Hofmann struggles to do his best as being there for both parents, making (more or less of a choice) sacrifices with his job.

After several years (3 I think), she comes back and tries to reestablish a relationship with her son. They go on a trial (where “Kramer vs. Kramer” name came from) and the judge decides to leave the custody to the mother, just because she is the mother (another example that things changes in time).

I’m not that fond, when writing about a movie, to start typing the story of it. The movie is not so dynamic. No one could do a film like that nowadays. It’s one that was put by many people in the category “annoying Oscars“.

Did not quite enjoy writing about it 🙂. Hoffman still does a remarkable role… as being him.

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