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.

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.

"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.

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.