Kramer vs Kramer
By Kit Macdonald
The one-off Hollywood dream team of Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep drives this 1979 classic, despite Hoffman being on-screen for far longer. He plays Ted Kramer, a work-obsessed advertising executive whose wife Joanna (Streep) abruptly leaves him, forcing him into a sudden confrontation with the realities of single parenthood.
Hoffman's performance charts this most challenging of crash courses in brilliant and sometimes heart-rending detail as he gradually progresses from rushed, flailing burner of French toast to competent and patient single parent and emotionally responsible adult. The film’s second half, meanwhile, mercilessly exposes the inhumanity of the legal system via the estranged couple's custody battle over their young son, Billy.