Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Kirpianuscus It seems weird to say something about this film. because it is source of states, emotions, delicate touches, cold war, admirable pledge for family, a meeting, almost magic, between Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda and, in few scenes, great clash between realism and nostalgia. a film who gives the measure of things, out of masks, appearences or expectations. because its subject is the fair form of happiness, the peace of past and the essence of the life of an old couple. a film like a precious remember. about yourself.

mmallon4 On Golden Pond deserves the title of "something you don't see every day". Movies which deal with old age don't usually become box office hits in a world obsessed with being young, yet On Golden Pond became the 2nd highest grossing film of 1981. Plus it stars two elderly actors who hadn't appeared in a major box office picture in over a decade.Despite their six decades in the industry, not only was it the first time Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn starred in a film together but they the first time they had even met each other. I never ceased to be amazed by the longevity of the careers of these two actors, especially Henry Fonda, whom I consider to have the most impress careers of any actor I've come across, scoring great films in every decade from the 30's right up to the 80's. On Golden Pond would be his last film and what a way to end a career. On Golden Pond reflects Fonda's real life relationship with his children. Reportedly the man was emotionally distant from his children, as are characters of Norman and his daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) in On Golden Pond. It makes you wonder how much of the interactions between the Fondas in the film are genuine with their intentionally forced and un-naturalistic manner of speaking to each other. Yet Norman will accidently utter Chelsea's name at several points showing that deep down he really cares about her. Also what's up with the bikini shots Jane Fonda? Was she trying to promote her exercise videos?Norman Thayer actually reminds me of my own grandfather in how he enjoys screwing with people's minds, such as the scene in which his future son in law tries to ask him if he would have a problem with having sex with his wife in their house. Norman Thayer seems like a stereotypical old man at first but we grow to empathize with his character. Just look at that battered old face of his which manages to say so much while his cranky, grump, smart aleck old man shtick helps the ease the likeability of his character. Norman is a man nearing the end of his life played by a man who literally was nearing the end of his life. Compared to Henry Fonda's appearance in the film Meteor which he stared in two years earlier, he aged quite a lot in that short period of time.Katharine Hepburn is one badass old lady in On Golden Pond. Just look at the scene in which jumps of a boat and into a lake to save her husband and nephew and doing he own stunts too. She also reportedly told Jane Fonda on set that she hated her but watching their scenes together you'd never know it but she's Kate, she can hate whoever she wants. Plus it's nifty to hear old stars curse, as well as flipping the bird. Norman and Ethel Thayer represent the old couple I believe most people would strive to be, married for decades but still madly in love with each other as ever.

David Conrad "On Golden Pond" works through the same themes that occupied many big-time play adaptations between the 1950s and the 1980s. Like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958) and "The Lion in Winter" (1968) it is about inter- generational family dysfunction, and it seems to want to embarrass or shock the audience through a frankness of discourse. It is the kind of script that purports to peel away the supposedly-artificial niceties of middle-class life to get to the meat of matters, which in the minds of these kinds of playwrights always seems to mean sex and death. Tennessee Williams and James Goldman made that format dance, and watching the great Hollywood versions of their works is thrilling because of the way they constantly try to set new records for speed and intensity and brutal honesty. "On Golden Pond" imitates these classics but with a lower degree of commitment. It's slower and gentler, and it never seems to let a barb stand unaccompanied by a sappy line or a nostalgic musical cue. It's a movie that's easy to like, because it's a suger-coated pill. As Williams and Goldman knew, there's nothing challenging about a sugar-coated pill. To them, the purpose of writing characters who speak in a forthright way about difficult issues was to make us face our fears and anxieties, and their genius was to do this while also being entertaining. "On Golden Pond" wants to do these things, but it wants to go down easy. That impulse is not altogether a bad one; compare it with another play adaptation, 1966's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," which aims to scream the loudest and cut the deepest only to end up as thoroughly unlikable as its characters. Toward the beginning, "On Golden Pond" echoes "Virginia Woolf" as Henry Fonda's irascible "old poop" tries to discomfit a polite younger man with blunt sexual talk. By the middle of the movie, though, this riff on Edward Albee's hard-edged approach gives way to a much sweeter narrative about an unlikely friendship between Fonda's 80-year-old and a 13-year-old boy. It's nice, but it's predictable and safe and familiar and forgettable whereas its predecessors succeeded by being none of those things. Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda are believable, though, and Jane Fonda threatens to upstage both of them as their adult daughter whose eyes betray an inner mixture of depression and resentment and a certain flightiness born of self-doubt. If nothing else, what "On Golden Pond" shares in full measure with its more ambitious and significant forerunners is magnificent acting by a top-shelf cast.

ElMaruecan82 Norman Thayer Jr. (Henry Fonda) and his wife Ethel (Katharine Hepburn) are back to their cottage on the 'Golden Pond' and the unforgettable enthusiastic "Come here, Norman! Look, the loons, the loons are welcoming us back!" magically encapsulates what their whole life was about: loving each other, and spending summer "On Golden Pond", they're a part of its history and it is a part of theirs. The images of the cottage with the magnificent nature surrounding it and interacting with the light of a rising or setting sun are absolutely dazzling, and never gratuitous. Rather than giving a sort of 'postcard' feeling to the film, they illustrate a sad reality: nature is cyclical; people's lives are not. The lake has been freezing and thawing, the leaves got green, yellow, orange, fell and were back on trees, but Norman and Ethel Thayer got older. Yet Ethel enjoys life for what it is, while Norman seems to resent it. Ethel embraces life with positivity, Norman contemplates death and their daughter Chelsea still carries the frustrations of a tormented childhood."On Golden Pond" deserves the title of being the ultimate movie about 'aging'. The protagonist's ages are seldom mentioned in movies, but maybe it's wrong. In real life, we do count the years, I just reached 30 and for me, it's big deal. Norman Thayer is 80, Ethel near 70, Chelsea's future husband (Dabney Coleman) is 45 and his son Billy Ray is 13, the film is the one that features the most lines about age, in order to establish a sort of hierarchy in attitude. The man who's 80 is allowed to act like a poop, the one who's 45 shyly asks him if he can share the same bed with his daughter, and with his 13-year old son, he displays authority. Chelsea almost commands Los Angeles, but with her father, she's a little girl again.That's life indeed, as if we all play characters within our true personality. That's what Norman does, and Coleman cleverly spots it when he finally retorts to his sarcasm by saying "you like playing that game". That's what Billy Ray does too, by acting like the young adult who doesn't want to stick with the two old guys while his father and stepmother are having a good time in Europe. But it all leads up to the same conclusion: "bullshit", a word overused by the kid and Norman thinks it's a good word. At the end, they have to compose with each other and they do it through fishing, probably the best generation-bonding activity that ever existed, and a source of great emotional, and sometimes heart-pounding moments."On Golden Pond" handles some of the most recognizable themes of family dramas, the unsolved parental conflict that poisoned Chelsea's life and filled her heart with anger and resentment, the grouchy old man in the twilight of his life with a sarcasm that is obviously a facade to hide a deep and tragic vulnerability, and in-between, the mother who struggles to reconcile them. But the reason I enumerate all these elements is not to point out how predictable is Mark Rydell's "On Golden Pond", the adaptation of a 1979 play written by Ernest Thompson, but how great it is despite its predictability. And the reason the film succeeds is that it's true to life. And that's what elevates "On Golden Pond" into a true cinematic treasure: it IS true to life. It has a unique capability to portray the inner strength and vulnerability of people in pivotal moments of their lives. I believed in the retired professor who celebrates his 80th birthday with a bitterness I could read in his eyes. I believed his devoted wife who's the only one who perceives the generosity, the genuine humanity of the man she spends most of her life with. And I believed in the daughter who endured her father's temperament and was jealous to see how easily her father got along with a boy who was 67-year older. In one extraordinary scene, Chelsea lets a bad word slip about her father, and although we could see the slap from her mother coming, it does resonate as a poignant and realistic moment.I guess I could go on and on the writing, and the directing, and there's no doubt they serve the film for good, but in "On Golden Pond", acting is the driving force and the main reason we believe in these characters and feel for them, genuinely, immediately and deeply. Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn and Jane Fonda embodies the triangular relationship with such realism and authenticity, I've never felt at one moment, that they were playing characters. There's one moment where the kid Billy Ray Jr. (Doug McKeon) asks Fonda if he ever thinks about death. And the reason he does is quite simple, something in Thayer's attitude betrays, if not a fear, at least an obsession with aging, even sadder because Henry Fonda is the same age, and we know that he would die one year later. And Henry Fonda's last role would be one of his career's highlight, earning him the Oscar for Best Actor, fully deserved, as he was able to portray pathos and anger, but still pulling some comedy in it. Katharine Hepburn won for her performance as Ethel, she was perfect indeed. And when she delivered the extraordinary declaration of love, the famous "shining armor" speech, I could almost see her golden heart shining. And Jane Fonda left me speechless, she desperately needed to be her father's friend … before it's too late. And you could tell the father and the daughter some bits of their personal history. And "On Golden Pond", it has an intimate, authentic feeling that makes the story personal; we do care for these people. The film succeeds as an unconventional family, love and coming- of-age story and, I repeat myself: it's truly a cinematic treasure.