Nominated for nine Oscars and winner of five (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Writting) in 1979. The story is the adaptation of the novel by Avery Corman and tells the difficulties of a father (Dustin Hoffman) who has to raise his child (Justin Henry) alone after his wife (Meryl Streep) leaves them.
Hoffman is played one of his best characters which made him won his first Oscar. The drama and intensity of Meryl Streep as the regret mother and the tenderness young Henry (nominated of Best Supporting Actor) make the film a believable and faultless family drama.
The background of a middle family of New York in the late 1970s is lighted to perfection in a small and simple settings but full of complex stories behind them. A common problem nowadays that Robert Benton knew how to direct in a harsh, deep and intense way.