Why Hoffman's character doesn't hire someone to help out, or bring one of the grandmothers or someone to stay for a while makes no sense. I doubt a man who makes a lot of money would have tried to do everything himself and end up putting his job in jeopardy because he has to pick up his kid at school.
shareWell, you're probably right in that he would have hired someone. But, if he did, there would be no movie. Many movies have simple solutions, but then they would be over in five minutes.
shareSo true.
In Baby Boom (1987), Diane Keaton "inherits" a baby (a year old) from a cousin. Like Ted, she has a successful career in advertising but unlike Ted, she wasn't fired when she started making mistakes at work because of the baby. The boss just wanted to assign her to a lesser account.
The main difference between that movie and Kramer vs. Kramer is that Baby Boom is a comedy.
So, we're supposed to go along with the plot convenience that Keaton with her executive brains, corporate instincts and money couldn't find the right live-in nanny.
It's really ridiculous and there was an interview scene with a succession of wrong ones.
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I just watched this for the first time last night and was also wondering why Ted didn't hire a nanny or babysitter. That way he would've still been able to spend time with his kid on weekends and (some) nights.
I also was curious as to what his salary at the first ad gig (the one he was fired from) would be in 21st century dollars, so I Googled an inflation calculator. He was making $33K before he was fired. That's the equivalent of almost $100K today. He definitely would've been able to afford some part time help.
Well, he wasn't exactly a millionaire. Especially after taking a substantial pay cut.
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It's really ridiculous and there was an interview scene with a succession of wrong ones.
There's a scene very much like this in Corrina, Corrina 1994.
In the TV show of Baby Boom they do the nanny interviews again
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Logically it would have made sense to hire someone, but the important thing was for him to keep his child, so he had to be a father who was around. Keeping his child was more important that his job for him.
shareBut when Joanna walked out, there was no reason to think this was temporary. He didn't know that at some point he would have to fight to keep his child. I think that especially at the beginning, the OP is right that he would have sought out paid help.
You must be the change you seek in the world. -- Gandhi
I know what you mean. In Europe, this kind of movie would probably be met with confusion since family members live in such relatively close vicinity. Sometimes you even have three generations living under one roof.
But in the US, especially during the past, the nuclear family (wife, husband, children all alone) was the ideal family unit, for some reason. This movie reflects that American attitude.
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Valid Point.
This is a major plot hole in the movie. It seems highly implausible that an upper middle class ad-man living on the Upper East Side would not employ a nanny or baby sitter to help him take care of his son. He also never employs a cleaning woman to help with the apartment or the laundry. He never even entertains the thought of hiring some kind of help which again seems implausible.
My friends parents got divorced when he was a kid and his father had custody. They were an average middle class family living in the suburbs of New Jersey and they had a woman come in to clean and do the laundry twice a week.
Also, it's odd they have this big shot ad-man walking around NYC in an old fatigue Army jacket almost giving the impression that he's working class or has no money.
Ted wasn't the kind of man to get other people to do [his] work. That would be like quitting.
This was one of the differences between book and movie: in the book, he DID hire someone, a housekeeper named Mrs. Willewska, whom he and Billy both love because she is so grandmotherly. There is a lovely moment where Billy pronounces her name perfectly and she remarks that he is very bright, that 'most people cannot,' and Ted is thinking what that must be like to have a name so many people 'cannot' pronounce.
Later in the novel, after the custody has been decided, Ted writes a letter to Joanna 'by way of introducing William Kramer.' He tells her all the things he has learned about Billy, things like which medicine works best for colds, who his pediatrician is now, that he is allergic to health food store peanut butter but not Jif, and that he hopes she will consider retaining Mrs. Willewska because Billy is attached to her and she knows him well and knows his routine.
I don't know why they deleted her character, unless it's that they wanted to show how hard Ted worked--because he DID--to do as much as he could by himself.
Thank you, Grizzy, for posting this. Now that I know the film script ruined the original story! This could have been a even better film !
shareI agree with that, especially after he was ranting to his boss and the boss suggested that he send Billy to stay with relatives for awhile until he figured things out. But as someone else said, then there would be no movie.
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