 Hoping to divert herself from the grief of Cazale 's death , Streep accepted a role in The Seduction of Joe Tynan ( 1979 ) as the chirpy love interest of Alan Alda , later commenting that she played it on " automatic pilot " . She performed the role of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew for Shakespeare in the Park , and also played a supporting role in Manhattan ( 1979 ) for Woody Allen . Streep later said that Allen did not provide her with a complete script , giving her only the six pages of her own scenes , and did not permit her to improvise a word of her dialogue . In the drama Kramer vs. Kramer , Streep was cast opposite Dustin Hoffman as an unhappily married woman who abandons her husband and child . Streep thought that the script portrayed the female character as " too evil " and insisted that it was not representative of real women who faced marriage breakdown and child custody battles . The makers agreed with her , and the script was revised . In preparing for the part , Streep spoke to her own mother about her life as a wife with a career , and frequented the Upper East Side neighborhood in which the film was set , watching the interactions between parents and children . The director Robert Benton allowed Streep to write her own dialogue in two key scenes , despite some objection from Hoffman , who " hated her guts " . Jaffee and Hoffman later spoke of Streep 's tirelessness , with Hoffman commenting , " She 's extraordinarily hardworking , to the extent that she 's obsessive . I think that she thinks about nothing else but what she 's doing . " The film was controversial among feminists , but it was a role which film critic Stephen Farber believed displayed Streep 's " own emotional intensity " , writing that she was one of the " rare performers who can imbue the most routine moments with a hint of mystery " . 
