Cocoon is a 1985 American science fiction comedy drama film directed by Ron Howard and written by Tom Benedek from a story by David Saperstein.

[6] The film stars Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn, Brian Dennehy, Jack Gilford, Steve Guttenberg, Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Gwen Verdon, Herta Ware, Tahnee Welch, and Linda Harrison, and follows a group of elderly people rejuvenated by aliens.

Disguising themselves as humans, they rent a house with a swimming pool and charge the water with "life force" to give the cocooned Antareans energy to survive the trip home.

Jack spies on Kitty, a beautiful woman from the team who chartered his boat, while she undresses in her cabin, and discovers that she is an alien.

Eventually caught in the act, they are given permission to use the pool by the Antarean leader, Walter, on the condition that they do not touch the cocoons or tell anybody else about it.

A thick, mysterious fog appears suddenly, stranding the remaining Coast Guard boats and causing the Manta III to disappear from their radar, so they call off the chase.

That, in addition to his two previous directorial efforts, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars, both being commercial failures — though critically acclaimed — led Fox to fire Zemeckis as director of Cocoon.

[12] Wilford Brimley was only 49 when he was cast as a senior citizen, and turned 50 during filming; he was as much as 26 years younger than the actors playing the other elderly characters.

In order to look the part, Brimley bleached his hair and moustache to turn them gray, and had wrinkles and liver spots drawn on his face.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that "Mr. Howard brings a real sweetness to his subject, as does the film's fine cast of veteran stars; he has also given Cocoon the bright, expansive look of a hot-weather hit.

[17] Variety called it "a fountain of youth fable, which imaginatively melds galaxy fantasy with the lives of aging mortals in a Florida retirement home [and] weaves a mesmerizing tale".

The critical consensus reads: "Though it may be too sentimental for some, Ron Howard's supernatural tale of eternal youth is gentle and heartwarming, touching on poignant issues of age in the process".

A 2018 article in The New Yorker by Ian Crouch argued that the meme highlighted how perceptions of aging have changed since the release of Cocoon.