It tells the story of a couple's divorce, its impact on their young son, and the subsequent evolution of their relationship and views on parenting.

Ted Kramer, a workaholic advertising executive in New York City, has just landed an important account and job promotion.

Ted drops Billy at his elementary school by asking him what grade he attends and leaving him with a woman at the entrance, before rushing to work.

Jim is understanding, but hopes that Ted's situation will not interfere with his new responsibility as the lead person on the Mid-Atlantic Airlines account.

He consults with a divorce attorney John Shaunessy, who cautions that the court usually awards custody to the mother when the child is young.

Knowing he has no chance at custody if he is unemployed, Ted doggedly tries to land a job within twenty-four hours, despite few ad firms hiring during the holiday season.

Producer Stanley R. Jaffe and writer and director Robert Benton read Avery Corman's source novel, and were so moved by the story that they bought the rights to make it into a film.

[3] He has since stated that, at that time, he had wanted to quit film acting and return to the stage, due to his depression and distaste for Hollywood.

While Jaffe and Benton were courting Hoffman, James Caan was offered the role, but turned it down, as he was concerned the film would be a flop.

[9] Streep was initially cast as Phyllis (the role eventually taken by JoBeth Williams), but she was able to force her way into auditioning for Joanna in front of Hoffman, Benton and Jaffe.

She found the character in the novel and script unsympathetic ("an ogre, a princess, an ass", as she called her), and approached Joanna from a more sympathetic point of view.

[9] Hoffman believed the death of Streep's fiancé, John Cazale, only months earlier, gave her an emotional edge and "still-fresh pain" to draw on for the performance.

[10] Gail Strickland was first cast as Ted's neighbor Margaret, but departed after a week of filming (due to "artistic differences", according to Columbia Pictures), and was replaced by Jane Alexander.

[3] Michael Schulman claims Strickland was so rattled by the intensity of filming with Hoffman that she developed a stammer, making her lines difficult to follow.

[9] Strickland disputes this account, saying she couldn't quickly memorize improvised lines Hoffman gave her, which agitated him, and she was fired two days later.

[9] Such was his commitment to method acting,[15] he would hurl insults and obscenities at Streep, taunt her with the name of her recently deceased fiancé, John Cazale, claiming it was designed to draw a better performance from her.

"[20] Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it a "fine, witty, moving, most intelligent adaptation of Avery Corman's best-selling novel", with Streep giving "one of the major performances of the year", and Hoffman "splendid in one of the two or three best roles of his career.

While a nasty court battle ensues, the human focus is never abandoned, and it's to the credit of not only Benton and Jaffe, but especially Hoffman and Streep, that both leading characters emerge as credible and sympathetic.

"[23] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times declared it "as nearly perfect a film as can be", and "a motion picture with an emotional wallop second to none this year.

"[24] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called the film "a triumph of partisan pathos, a celebration of father-son bonding that astutely succeeds where tearjerkers like The Champ (1979) so mawkishly failed".

[25] Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote, "All the people go through expected difficulties the way that runners take the hurdles in a track event: no surprise in it, it's just a question of how they do it.

According to the legal experts interviewed for the articles, a modern judge would have made use of psychological reports, and also would have considered the wishes of the child.

[20] The film made use of the first movement of Antonio Vivaldi's Mandolin Concerto in C Major, making the piece more familiar among classical music listeners.