text: Kramer Vs. Kramer is a near-heartening drama about shocking, drastic augmentations of the two subjects of a failed married couple. Meryl Streep, in the throes of her trademark maternal sensitivity, plays an unhappy stay-at-home mother who feels confined to such a role and within the first five minutes of the film leaves her inattentive husband, in a fantastic performance by Dustin Hoffman, to find another role for herself. Hoffman is dumbstruck, having absolutely no idea what to do with himself, having taken so much for granted that he doesn't know the first thing about getting his son to school in the morning.<br /><br />Hoffman seamlessly characterizes this husband as such a juicy load of setbacks. He is restless, relentless and impatient, but even though the positive side to those three adjectives should include just the opposite, he is unremittingly fixated on whatever he turns his head to. He's been focused on his career in advertising, and when he is left to raise his son Billy all by himself, chaos ushers in immediately. He's the one throwing temper tantrums and quitting angrily halfway through an activity. After awhile, as he befriends his neighbor and Joanna's former friend, played by sexy Jane Alexander, Hoffman cools his jets enough to understand why his wife left. In the meantime, his boundless energy redirects towards raising Billy and he loses his job.<br /><br />The custody battle of the title is a brilliantly grey circumstance. Even if the ending is a little unmotivated, subjectified for the audience, the last line and the last shot still have that witty screen writing touch that seemed to diminish after the magical 1970s.