Verbal Communication Vs. Kramer: Nonverbal Communication

Kramer Versus Kramer After watching the movie Kramer Versus Kramer, I will create a brief summary and cover several aspects of communication, including hearing versus listening, nonverbal communication, and relationships. A brief overview of the film Kramer Versus Kramer starts out by the main character Ted coming home late from work and his wife Joanna tells him that she is leaving him. She leaves Billy (their son) with Ted, and goes off on her own. Ted knows next to nothing about their son Billy, but through the course of the movie you see him change from a working man to a loving father. There are many cases in the movie, while mostly in the beginning, that Ted would just hear what was happening instead of listening. When Ted got home in the beginning of the movie, he was so wrapped up in what just happened at work that he wasn’t listening when Joanna told him that she was leaving him. He just kept talking about how his day went and ignoring everything that she said. Later on in the movie he started changing though. He started actually listening to what people had to say, and changed himself based on responses.
Throughout the movie, as in any movie or action in real life, there are signs of nonverbal communication.
Since nonverbal communication is often unintentional, there is an overabundance of it, and usually shows with every action that we do. When Billy and Ted were ‘fighting’ one day, Billy got locked in his room after dinner and started crying. Tears are an expression of hurt or sadness, while kicking and flailing told the viewer that Billy was upset. Another instance of nonverbal communication being used in the movie was, whether intentional or not, a character nodding his head yes while denying a statement that was directed at him. Not only do nonverbals show what a person may be thinking, but it can also reveal thoughts left unspoken or hidden from the person the message is intended
for. Lastly, the movie Kramer Versus Kramer shows how relationships affect people. In the beginning of the movie, Ted was barely even a father to Billy, but in the end he was even more so than the mother. During the course of time, building relationships with other people shape who we are, and can make us become a whole other person. Ted went from a strict business man who didn’t know much about his family to caring about his son way more than his job. Ted also built a solid relationship with Joanna’s friend Margaret. In the beginning, he was blaming her for Joanna leaving, but at the end they were very good friends. In conclusion, after viewing the film Kramer Versus Kramer, I have written a brief summary and covered a few different aspects of communication showing examples of hearing instead of listening, different types of nonverbal communication, and the impact relationships have on us. From viewing this movie I have learned just how much we can change from the simple actions of people coming and going in our lives. What is important to us today may not be so important tomorrow.