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User Reviews for: Kramer vs. Kramer

drqshadow
7/10  3 months ago
A big city advertising executive is forced to re-prioritize when his wife abruptly splits, leaving him to care for their seven-year-old son. As Dad’s always been too focused on his career to do much parenting, the first few days seem hopeless, but the old man learns on the job and falls in love with the ups and downs of fatherhood. He and the kid get it together, help each other through the confusion and begin to move forward. Then, more than a year later, Mom returns from her exile, files for custody, and re-opens all their old wounds in a courtroom.

_Kramer vs. Kramer_ is a heavy, message-laden drama. It ponders all sorts of familial notions and stereotypes, taken for granted at the time, then leaves its audience to determine the answers. Are women better-suited to nurturing roles than men? Can a single parent survive in a fast-paced professional lifestyle? Are the decks of a divorce court stacked against the father? We see evidence in each case, but few final judgments. Those rhetoricals, like life itself, are cloudy and difficult.

One thing we can’t question is the cruel emotional wringer it puts the kids through. In this particular case, the boy is an obstacle to everyone and, despite his young age, he senses as much. Mom couldn’t handle the transition from her glamorous single days and balked at the prospect of spending another decade in the domestic cage. Dad dedicated his life to a high-end job that falls apart as soon as he assumes the child-rearing. The youngster blames himself for each of his parents’ shortcomings, and nobody of any age is equipped to deal with that much guilt. Young Justin Henry, in his first-ever film role, lets us feel it all. There’s a rage to his performance, a simmering sense of self-doubt and crippling sadness, but also hints of the happy little boy who still fights to claw his way through the mire. Henry’s character is the film’s beating heart, the power to its punch, and the kid plucks those threads like an expert. He even out-performs Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, who received Oscars for their work. Talk about an embarrassment of riches.

This story’s tough and honest, right to the end, and then a hand-wavy climactic scene dulls the sting a little bit. That’s not enough to eliminate the gray morality and passionate character work I so appreciated, nor to ruin their staying power, but it does make for something of a flat, mismatched parting shot. A pity, since human pathos and realism were such crucial elements in the preceding ninety minutes. Great acting, terrific screenplay, hiccup of an ending.
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