On Golden Pond (1981) Review

Anyone who knows me well, or even anyone who looks at one of the pictures in my office, knows that my favorite actress is Katharine Hepburn. She may have not always been in great movies but she was always, as she wrote in her biography, adorable in all of them. On Golden Pond is a great movie where she is perfect.

Based upon the stage play by Ernest Thompson (who also wrote the screenplay) takes place one summer on a lake that is, of course, called Golden Pond. Norman (Henry Fonda) and Ethel Thayer (Hepburn) are an aging couple who own a cottage on the lake that they visit every summer. Together they have one daughter, Chelsea (Played by Henry Fonda's real life daughter Jane Fonda), who decides that she needs to visit for Norman's eightieth birthday. She brings along her boyfriend Bill (Dabney Coleman) and his son Billy (Doug McKeon) and then travels to Europe with Bill. They leave Billy to spend the summer with Ethel and Norman.
The entire film centers on the various relationships that the other characters have with Norman. Ethel loves him and Chelsea feels neglected by him.

As I said above Katharine Hepburn is perfect in this but I also need to mention the incomparable performance given by Henry Fonda. On the surface Norman is a humorous old man but there is a visible tragedy beneath that humor that Fonda balances in a way that is extremely subtle but nonetheless moving.

I think it's everyone's secret wish to be like Norman and Ethel. People want to find someone to grow old with and still be in love. That's why this film is so readable and touching.

Definitely worth watching more than once.

★★★★