Recommended viewing

The Graduate (1968)

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Lenny (1974)

All the President's Men (1976)

Kramer vs Kramer (1979)

So there I was, seated in the cinema on opening night – March 1980 – and fortunate enough to gain admittance after the doors had closed, merely because I was on my own. Surrounded by groups of women and readily passing the box of kleenex around, it was frankly rather hard for my twenty one year old self to comprehend their all too ready identification with Billy’s mother. “I felt so sorry for her but I could never do what she did,” was the obvious comment I heard from more than one attendee when the showing was over.

The case for the defence lay primarily with Joanna’s testimony at the custody trial.

“Look, during the last five years of our marriage, I was scared and I was very unhappy. And in my mind I had no other choice but to leave. At the time I left I felt that there was something terribly wrong with me. And that my son would be better off without me. And it was only after I got to California that I realized, after getting into therapy, that I wasn’t such a terrible person and just because I needed some kind of creative or emotional outlet other than my child, that didn’t make me unfit to be a mother. I know I left my son. I know that that’s a terrible thing to do. Believe me I have to live with that every day of my life. But in order to leave him, I had to believe that it was the only thing I could do. And that it was the best thing for him. However, I have since gotten some help, and I have worked very, very hard to become a whole human being. And I don’t think I should be punished for that.”

In turn, this would elicit a wonderfully measured response from her former spouse, the equally former career obsessed macho male;

“There’s a lot of things I didn’t understand, a lot of things I’d do different if I could. Just like I think there’s a lot of things you wish you could change, but we can’t. Some things once they’re done can’t be undone. My wife, my ex-wife, says that she loves Billy, and I believe she does, but I don’t think that’s the issue here. If I understand it correctly, what means the most here is what’s best for our son. What’s best for Billy. My wife used to always say to me: ‘Why can’t a woman have the same ambitions as a man?’ I think you’re right. And maybe I’ve learned that much. But by the same token, I’d like to know, what law is it that says that a woman is a better parent simply by virtue of her sex? You know, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what it is it that makes somebody a good parent? You know, it has to do with constancy, it has to do with patience, it has to do with listening to him. It has to do with pretending to listen to him when you can’t even listen anymore. It has to do with love, like, like, like she was saying. And I don’t know where it’s written that it says that a woman has a corner on that market, that, that a man has any less of those emotions than a woman does. Billy has a home with me. I’ve made it the best I could. It’s not perfect. I’m not a perfect parent. Sometimes I don’t have enough patience because I forget that he’s a little kid. But I’m there. We get up in the morning and then we eat breakfast, and he talks to me and then we go to school. And at night, we have dinner together and we talk then and I read to him. And, and we built a life together and we love each other. If you destroy that, it may be irreparable. Joanna, don’t do that, please. Don’t do it twice to him.”

Lo and behold, dear Joanna doesn’t. Having won the custody battle and having called to take Billy home, she realises that he is already home and cannot bring herself to exercise her legal right. For the love of God, there isn’t even enough conviction in every sinew of her body to believe that the child would be inherently better off living with its natural mother. Back to therapy methinks, if only to further ‘find herself.’

Hoffman picked up the best actor Oscar, and deservedly so. He carries the film.

Tootsie (1982)

Rain Man (1988)

Last chance Harvey (2008)

Hoffman’s best role in years as Harvey, a jingle writer/pianist on skid row, taking time out to attend his estranged daughter’s wedding in London, only to discover that she wants her stepfather to give her away at the ceremony.

Suitably self consumed with his professional problems, he gives Kate (Emma Thompson), the airport’s market-research questionnaire representative, short thrift on his arrival, rudely rebuffing her advances. It’s an auspicious start for the pair, yet a connection soon forms. Attracted by her feistiness and forthrightness – ‘I have to tell you,’ he says, ‘that it’s a relief to find someone who says what they’re thinking and feeling,’ the pair inch their way towards mature love, their story’s simplicity somewhat belied by the complexities that go with being two older people, struggling against their fear of a new, potentially profound, relationship. If Kate is ‘comfortable with being disappointed,’ then deep down she still yearns for more.

Along the way, Hoffman gets to tickle the ivories at the wedding reception, re-connect with his daughter, and square up to personal ‘happiness.’ It’s heartwarming material for those overloaded on CGI, and there’s the occasional comedic diversion, as Kate’s well meaning yet overbearing mother finds true lust with her gardener.

Esio Trot (2014)

Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer’s charming adaptation of Roald Dahl’s best-selling children’s novel – first published in 1990 – was that rare form of televisual feast to truly gladden the spirits at Christmastime.

Hoffman picked up an Emmy for his efforts, just reward indeed for a superlatively understated performance and his obvious affinity for such slow moving reptiles. During promotional work for the finished project, the actor admitted that:

“I’ve owned two tortoises in my life. I still have one, called Seventy because I got him as a 70th birthday present. I love them.”

Working “against type,” Hoffman parks his usual bombastic exterior in favour of an adorably timid soul, while Judi Dench, so often reserved as proper British characters, delights in such an openly flirtatious part, clad in bright colors and low-cut dresses, while tapping into a daffy, Lucille Ball-like energy we didn’t know was there.

Oozing small screen warmth and coziness, it’s classic entertainment for both young and old. Roald would have been proud…………