Why I love Meryl Streep’s performance in Kramer… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

Why I love Meryl Streep’s per­for­mance in Kramer vs Kramer

17 Dec 2019

Words by Beth Piket

A close-up portrait of a young woman with blonde hair and a serious expression against a blurred green background.
A close-up portrait of a young woman with blonde hair and a serious expression against a blurred green background.
Her affect­ing turn as woman in tur­moil Joan­na earned her the first of many Oscar wins.

It’s dif­fi­cult to pin­point the pre­cise moment when Meryl Streep was pro­pelled into star­dom. Many raise a valid case for Lin­da in 1979’s The Deer Hunter as her indis­putable break­through per­for­mance, radi­at­ing ten­der­ness and sen­si­tiv­i­ty amid unyield­ing bru­tal­i­ty. Yet the true scope of her tal­ent was arguably not realised until the release of Robert Benton’s Kramer vs Kramer one year lat­er, earn­ing Streep her first Acad­e­my Award.

Despite being on screen for only 10 min­utes in her role as Joan­na, a dif­fi­dent divorcee who ulti­mate­ly comes to regret her deci­sion to aban­don her son, Streep demands our atten­tion as she guides us through the debris of a bro­ken rela­tion­ship with unwa­ver­ing can­dour. Joan­na is the cat­a­lyst of this col­li­sion of love and betray­al, and Streep’s pro­fi­cien­cy for creep­ing beneath the audience’s skin as she cool­ly flits between del­i­cate and obsti­nate is what makes this one of her most affect­ing performances.

Bring­ing the breezy open­ing cred­its to a clat­ter­ing stand­still, Joanna’s gold­en wed­ding band glints in the dim light as she press­es a hand to her face, low breaths bare­ly audi­ble above the sud­den silence. Swal­low­ing her emo­tions rapid­ly becomes a los­ing bat­tle as they unroll across her face; her expres­sion comes to resem­ble a tan­gled patch­work of anguish and exhaus­tion. She lev­els her trem­bling breath as she watch­es her son doze peace­ful­ly, forc­ing out a mut­tered I love you”. Off­hand com­ments about bit­ing bed bugs hang heavy as they dis­turb the tran­quil­li­ty of the child’s bed­room, and her ten­der touch­es seem to play out in slow motion in the shad­ows. We know some­thing is wrong.

Ini­tial­ly, Streep strug­gled to unearth any affec­tion for Joan­na, once brand­ing her an ogre, a princess, an ass”. She was deter­mined to instil the char­ac­ter with a sense of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, eager to unteth­er her­self from the ear­ly screenplay’s rigid male chau­vin­ism – but this con­flict even­tu­al­ly yield­ed an aston­ish­ing phys­i­cal per­for­mance from Streep, where the emo­tions she bat­tles to con­tain ulti­mate­ly spill out in her facial expres­sions and body language.

When Joanna’s hus­band, Ted (Dustin Hoff­man), arrives home, he tram­ples impa­tient­ly about the cramped apart­ment, habit­u­al­ly speak­ing over her. Offer­ing respite from Ted’s brash ego­tism, Streep moves slow­ly, cau­tious­ly, her part­ed mouth teas­ing an assertive­ness which is nev­er fol­lowed through. She stands quak­ing. I’m leav­ing you,” she final­ly blurts out with a hint of a stam­mer, despite her words seem­ing notice­ably rehearsed. Her farewell is deliv­ered in a rapid burst as she becomes engulfed by her own anx­i­ety, but her com­po­sure stub­born­ly refus­es to crum­ble. Her tone leaps from hur­ried and ele­vat­ed to soft and plead­ing with­in the same sen­tence, with Streep’s voice sophis­ti­cat­ed­ly ren­der­ing Joan­na a tor­ment­ed woman.

Para­dox­i­cal­ly, Streep’s pres­ence is most keen­ly felt when she’s no longer on screen. Dai­ly rou­tines for Ted and Bil­ly are char­ac­terised by French toast flecked with egg shells, rat­tling toys, rushed school runs, mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tions and pan­icked reas­sur­ances. Ten­sion swells, and the sense of sta­bil­i­ty once sus­tained by Joan­na is qui­et­ly yearned for long after her side of the bed has gone cold.

Kramer vs Kramer is reluc­tant to con­demn either par­ent as the pri­ma­ry offend­er, adopt­ing an obser­va­tion­al approach as opposed to judg­men­tal tone as it shad­ows a father attempt­ing to rec­ti­fy his par­ent­ing laps­es. Cru­cial­ly, the film eval­u­ates a woman’s role beyond mater­nal respon­si­bil­i­ties; Joanna’s deci­sions are seen to be made by a woman in tur­moil, whose affec­tions are nev­er rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed, whose efforts go unap­pre­ci­at­ed, whose desires go unful­filled. Just as we are nev­er asked to for­give Joan­na, we are nev­er entire­ly void of sym­pa­thy of her.

When she pre­dictably returns, seek­ing cus­tody of Bil­ly, the ven­omous con­fronta­tion that we had patient­ly antic­i­pat­ed nev­er arrives. In the court­room, Streep’s Oscar-clinch­ing mono­logue bare­ly advances towards the erup­tive cli­max ear­li­er hint­ed at – instead, she invites judg­ment of Joan­na. With a steady voice brim­ming with urgency, she speaks of Bil­ly, and in place of shriek­ing spurts of anger are soft­ly-spo­ken words which echo gen­tly around the vast room. Frag­ile yet self-assured, Streep han­dles Joanna’s crum­bling psy­che with remark­able atten­tive­ness, unscram­bling her thoughts to artic­u­late them perfectly.

We nev­er tru­ly decon­struct the enig­ma sur­round­ing Joan­na, and we cer­tain­ly can­not claim to whol­ly under­stand her moti­va­tions, nei­ther as a moth­er nor woman. Juve­nile and clum­sy, she’s fre­quent­ly mud­dled in her moral­i­ty and con­tin­u­ous­ly off-putting in her unpre­dictabil­i­ty. Streep weaponis­es the most pri­mal of human emo­tions – guilt, love, desire – and forces us to seek worth with­in Joan­na, and more sig­nif­i­cant­ly, to rumi­nate upon what we have in com­mon with her. Streep’s rela­tion­ship with Joan­na is com­pli­cat­ed, often strained, and yet it is irrefutably fuelled by love and respect.

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