On Golden Pond (1981)

Directed by Mark Rydell. Starring Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Doug McKeon, Jane Fonda, Dabney Coleman. [PG]

Sentimental story of a cantankerous fogey played by Henry Fonda suffering from onset senility who spends his summers at a lakeside New England cottage with doting wife Hepburn. This summer, the pair are saddled with the bratty pre-teen son of their daughter’s fiancé, but the boys end up bonding over fishing. Has the middling production values, sterile visuals, overbearing music, and pedestrian direction of a TV-movie from the era. The authenticity of the acting and character relationships deserve some level of praise, but the script is too mawkish and the storytelling too facile for these folks to ever truly come to life (but at least those freakin’ loons come around at the end to say goodbye). The art-imitating-life angle of elder Fonda and daughter Fonda having a climactic reconciliation may fool tears into falling, but that may require short-term memory loss from all the trite moments that preceded it. Both leads won Academy Awards—in Fonda’s case, a career Oscar “apology”; in Hepburn’s case, the fourth and final one of her career (a total still unmatched to date). Ernest Thompson adapted his own play, the rights of which were purchased by Jane for her pops.

40/100