On Golden Pond is a 1981 drama film directed by Mark Rydell from a screenplay written by Ernest Thompson, adapted from his 1979 play of the same name.
At their summer home on Golden Pond, Norman and Ethel agree to care for Billy, the son of Chelsea's new boyfriend, and an unexpected relationship blooms.
It received ten nominations at the 54th Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, and won three: Best Actor (for Henry Fonda), Best Actress (for Katharine Hepburn) and Best Adapted Screenplay.
An aging couple, Ethel and Norman Thayer, continue a tradition of spending each summer at their cottage on a lake called Golden Pond, in the far reaches of northern New England.
As they resettle into their summer home, Norman, who is about to turn 80, shows signs of dementia when he is unable to recognize several family photographs.
Ethel does her best to liven up the atmosphere – they play Parcheesi, admire the natural scenery, and talk to the mailman, Charlie, who delivers mail and visits via boat.
Although Norman is acting cynically as his 80th birthday approaches, showing signs of dementia and having heart palpitations, he allows Billy to stay.
[5] Screenwriter Thompson spent his summers along the shores of Great Pond, located in Belgrade, Maine, but the film was made on Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire.
[6] The house used in the film was leased from a New York physician and was modified significantly for the shoot: an entire second floor was added as a balcony over the main living area at the request of the production designer.
These were provided by Patrick Curtin of Eastern Classics, a boatyard in Laconia, New Hampshire, specializing in the restoration of mahogany speedboats.
The water level in Squam Lake was so low during the summer of production that Fonda and Doug McKeon could have stood during the scene in which they were supposedly clinging to the rocks for fear of drowning.
While filming the scene in which Fonda and Hepburn are watching the loons on the lake, the speedboat that sped by and disturbed them was so forceful it overturned their canoe in one take.
The website's critical consensus reads, "Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn are a wondrous duo in On Golden Pond, a wistful drama that movingly explores the twilight years of a loving marriage.
I left the theater feeling good and warm, and with a certain resolve to try to mend my own relationships and learn to start listening better ... watching the movie, I felt I was witnessing something rare and valuable.
[20]In his The New York Times review, Vincent Canby said: As a successful Broadway play, On Golden Pond was processed American cheese, smooth, infinitely spreadable and bland, with color added by the actors ... the movie ... still American cheese, but its stars—Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Jane Fonda and Dabney Coleman—add more than color to this pasteurized product.
Mr. Fonda is the best thing that's happened to her since Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart ... an added pleasure is the opportunity to see Dabney Coleman [in] a role that goes beyond the caricatures he's usually given to play ... On Golden Pond is a mixed blessing, but it offers one performance of rare quality and three others that are very good.
[21]TV Guide rates it 3+1⁄2 out of 4 stars, calling it "a beautifully photographed movie filled with poignancy, humor, and (of course) superb acting ... there could have been no finer final curtain for [Henry Fonda] than this.
"[22] Channel 4 sums up its review by stating: Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn both shine in an impressively executed Hollywood drama.
David Kehr of the Chicago Reader wrote: The cinematic equivalent of shrink-wrapping, in which all of the ideas, feelings, characters, and images are neatly separated and hermetically sealed to prevent spoilage, abrasion, or any contact with the natural world ... Mark Rydell's bright, banal visual style further sterilizes the issues.