Truly Dreadful Film

As Good As It Gets

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Usually, when an actor of Henry Fonda's age and reputation wins an Oscar for a late-career performance (in this case Fonda's last performance), the award is a de facto lifetime achievement award. In this case, the Oscar was actually merited by the work itself: Fonda is just wonderful here. Lines that might not have been funny on the page are laugh-out-loud funny in the film thanks to his delivery, and his character is believably complex and deeply sympathetic. I love Henry Fonda, and I particularly love him in On Golden Pond. As with so many of his films, this one is worth seeing for him alone.The film as a whole is best described as the all-time greatest Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie. You can easily make the case that it's schmaltzy, safe, and predictable - but why bother, when the movie is so enjoyable? The cinematography and Dave Grusin's score are lovely, and Fonda is not the only actor turning in career-best work.But, an admission: this was the first movie I ever saw in a theater. I was four years old, and I remember the whole night so clearly. I was in love with the movies instantly. Forty or so years later - at a point when I've seen dozens of Fonda movies and Hepburn movies, everything from Bringing Up Baby and Young Mr. Lincoln to Once Upon a Time in the West and Rooster Cogburn - I still enjoy On Golden Pond.

As often as I can, I try to give a second, or a third watch to one of those movies, somehow powerfully charming for me. I go back to them, again and again, to confirm my feelings about the story that enchanted me when I saw it for the first time.The films don't change, they are always the same, forever and ever. It's just you, me, those who are not the same anymore. So, if I fall in love again with the film I first watched as a teenager, when I took my mother with me to the local movie theatre and now, again, as I did by that time, cried and laughed at this story about life and getting old, oh well, that's simply because the film is that good.

Hardly a classic.A retired couple, Ethel and Norman Thayer, are spending a summer in a cottage near a lake, as they always do. This time, however, their semi-estranged daughter, Chelsea, joins them...Maybe you have to be old to appreciate the characters and the interplay, but I found this pretty boring. The "quirkiness" (more like senility) of Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn's characters irritated me. The jokes seemed lame and trite. The father-daughter relationship issue, meant to be the central plot line, seemed not as significant as it was made out to be, and overdone.Not a classic, by any stretch of the imagination. I'll give it another go, though, in about 30 years time...

This stunning picture marking the final film appearance of legendary screen legend Mr Henry Fonda is a terrific portrayal of the turbulent and distant relationship between father and his on screen and off-screen daughter Jane Fonda. Needless to say, the real star of this picture is Fonda himself playing the cranky and despondent old poop that is Norman Thayer.The whole point with this picture was moving away from the misconception that aging is something to fear in this world, but it is rather something that needs to be embraced and welcomed into one's life – including Norman. The relationship between the father and daughter of the picture is something of central significance throughout the play. Upon Jane Fonda's return in the final scenes of the movie to the idealistic image of her father bonding with her stepson in a way he never did quite did with her reinforces the idea that it is indeed never too late to reconcile the paternal bonds that had, at once, proved almost impossible to retain.What really stood out from this picture is the chemistry between the two lead roles; Hepburn and Fonda, in their Oscar-winning performances, appear to not capture the sexualized and lustful kind of chemistry but a kind that's most genuine, relatable and honest to audiences alike.The pictures traditional and authentic message resonates that we should quit the discrepancies and controversies of the past and aim to begin the path of forgiveness and reconciliation. Strangely, the weakest section of the picture was the undeveloped 'lack of bond' between Fonda's character and his daughter. The pair's scenes demonstrated a lack of raw emotion and total emptiness - odd considering the storyline appeared to showcase their real-life lack of paternal bonding in Jane's adolescent years.Nonetheless, no one can take away the simply beauty and treasure that is 1981's On Golden Pond. The picture's sweet and gentle plot focusing on an elderly man's search for a greater meaning to growing older in the form of the late Henry Fonda with his kind-hearted and sensible wife, the also late, Ms Katharine Hepburn.