Kramer vs. Kramer

The last movie of the 70's was the little family drama Kramer vs. Kramer.  Nominated for 9 awards and winning 5 including Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman and Best Supporting Actress for Meryl Streep. 
This small budget family drama beat out two big budget darker movies Apocalypse Now and All That Jazz.  Family drama was a hot topic around this time with three movies about family's winning Best Picture. The year after Kramer vs. Kramer Ordinary People another family drama won Best Picture and 3 years later Terms of Endearment won Best Picture

Kramer vs. Kramer is a movie about a family who mother leaves unexpectedly and the father has to raise their 5 year old son.  Of course at first the father has no clue what to do since the mother use to take care of things like breakfast and getting ready for school. Also the extra responsibility at home takes a toll on his work. His work begins to decline and he misses a few deadlines and he ends up being fired.  But he gets a new job and he gets into a nice routine with his son and they begin to bond and heal the wounds that occurred when the mother left.  After 18 months Mrs. Kramer returns and wants complete custody of their son.  Obviously after spending all this time with their son the Mr. Kramer puts up a fight and the case ends up in family court. 

This is  Another movie that speaks for the times. The strong feminist movement in 70's inspired this movie.  The reason Joanna gives for leaving in the first place was that she was unhappy in her marriage and needed to go find herself. A sentiment that echos the feminist movement. The movie deals with some of the harsh realities of the movement. Like if a mother leaves her child does she have the right to come back? It also deals with the discrimination against men to be good parents. During the court scenes the court finds in favor of the mother basically because she is a women.  I am not sure if the feminist like this movie as it shows mostly the mans perspective and negative consequences of the movement. 

Over all this is a good movie. But the question is should it have won?  In my opinion no. Apocalypse Now and All That Jazz were better movies.  I think that Apocalypse Now was the best picture of 1979.  Dealing with dark subject matter and horrors of war it is another gritty movie.  All That Jazz is also a dark movie dealing with the demons in the head of a Broadway director. It is a semi-autobiographical movie by Bob Fosse. This marks the third time that Director's Bob Fosse and Francis Ford Coppola were both nominated against each other.  Bob Fosse won in 1972 for Cabaret and Francis Ford Coppola won in 1974 for The Godfather Part II.  This year they both lost best director to Robert Benton who won for Kramer vs. Kramer. 

Most of the principle cast of Kramer vs. Kramer was nominated for an award. Dustin Hoffman won Best Actor and Meryl Streep won Best Supporting Actress.  Justin Henry who played the kid that the parents were fighting over was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. At age 8 he is the youngest acting nominee in Oscar history.  Also nominated for Best Supporting Actress was Jane Alexander who played the neighbor that helps out Mr. Kramer.