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Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780767809214
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
ISBN: 0767809211
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Release Date: July 28, 1998
Running Time: 105 minutes
Sales Rank: 24678
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: December 19, 1979
Editorial Review:
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: - 3 stars out of 4
The Bottom Line:
A competent and interesting drama, Kramer vs. Kramer is almost certainly not as good a film as Apocalypse Now (which it beat out at the 1980 Academy Awards) but it's well-acted and solidly made and worth sitting down with for two hours.
Rating:  - Double standards aren't anything new
I saw this film when it first came out and I must say what must have made it Oscar material was the subject matter - not the story. We see here the seeds of the downfall of the boomer generation as well as the usual double standards in play.
Let's get this right -- Streep's character mothers her son for 5 years but somehow that is not as wonderful as Hoffman's 18 month investment? Somehow his shorter time "counts for more." Streep leaves for 18 months but somehow that is "more" than ... Read More
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 ... 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.
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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 ... Read More
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