"On Golden Pond" (1981)

 

“Your fascination with dying is beginning to frazzle my good humor.”  Ethel Thayer (Katharine Hepburn) to husband Norman (Henry Fonda), “On Golden Pond”

The pandemic has robbed us of a year of our lives, maybe more. Young people and seniors, especially, have had so much important time ripped away from them.  The danger of contagion, the risk of serious complications and fatality, make it impossible to escape. 

The limitations placed upon us by the virus have delayed or destroyed common rites of passage for the young, like graduation, prom, athletic achievement, and dating, things that can never be recaptured in the same way later on.  For those in their mature years, the activities that were planned for retirement have been interrupted, maybe indefinitely, cheating seniors out of social connections, cultural experiences and travel, while their years of health and mobility pass quickly by.   The very old have it worst of all, being completely cut off from life in the little time that remains to live.

A few weeks ago, I took another look at the 1980 Oscar-winning “Ordinary People”, which dramatized the challenges of a depressed high school student after his straitlaced family suffers a terrible loss.  Recently, I re-visited “On Golden Pond”, the story of an elderly couple adjusting to life’s final chapter.  To my surprise, the two films are unlikely companion pieces.

Although not similar in style or plot, both films examine characters for whom death has become a constant presence. The connecting thread in both films is a sense of being cheated out of an important phase of living.  Young Conrad Jarrett in “Ordinary People” is unable to accept his brother’s death and contemplates suicide; old Norman Thayer in “On Golden Pond” obsesses about his encroaching departure from life.

While “Ordinary People” is an intense and cathartic look at depression and suicide among the young, “On Golden Pond” is a comic drama about aging and dying that approaches a number of difficult subjects, and then smooths them away.  It’s pure comfort food, an easygoing piece of pop entertainment that doesn’t want to devastate us.  To its great credit, it provides us with an experience that is rare in modern American film: it lets us identify with an elderly couple, approaching their last sunset together, played by two of cinema’s most enduring icons.

Ethel and Norman Thayer (Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda, both of them splendidly, unashamedly older) arrive at their cabin on Golden Pond, somewhere in New England, to spend another summer together while there is still time.   Norman, who is about to turn 80, has heart trouble and is starting to forget things.

They go about their daily routine, canoe on the lake, watch a pair of loons who symbolize their partnership, and enjoy some peaceful, good-natured sparring.  Ethel is energetic, outgoing, and fiercely protective of Norman.  Norman is dryly humorous, cynical, even bitter about the decline of his mind and body, and the inevitability of death.  Ethel is able to take Norman’s rants in stride, and tries her best to help instill in him a sense of confidence, and competence.  It is no easy task. 

In this particular summer, they are visited by their daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda, Henry’s actual daughter), with whom Norman has had a troubled relationship.  Chelsea and her new fiancé, Bill (Dabney Coleman), are on their way to Europe, and ask Norman and Ethel to take care of Bill’s thirteen-year-old son, Billy (Doug McKeon), for the month that they are away.

The first third of “On Golden Pond” is the most effective.  It is leisurely paced, and filled with honest sentiment.  We get to know the two main characters, observe their relationship, and glean bits and pieces of their past.  This first section comes together with a mood of autumnal reverie, intimacy, and metaphoric farewell.  If the film ended there, or developed into a 2-character piece about Norman and Ethel's relationship, the movie might have been a true cinema classic.

The immediate conflict between 76-year-old Norman and 13-year-old Billy becomes the focus of the middle section of the film.  

When Bill and Chelsea return to see that Billy and Noman have become best buddies, the long-buried tensions between Chelsea and her father come to the fore, while Ethel plays referee, in the film’s final section.

The second two thirds attempt to add depth to the theme of aging.  We are introduced to relevant ideas: the clash of cultures across generations; the unresolved issues between parents and children; the swift passing of time, and the need for reconciliation; the terror of life-threatening illness, and of losing one’s memory; and the heroics of caregiving.  

Each one alone could make great drama; but after touching on them, the film doesn’t fully develop them. “On Golden Pond” prefers a feel-good approach, so its issues aren’t examined too deeply, and we want more.   

In several moments throughout the film, just as a point is about to be made, and a climactic resolution reached, the movie backs off to idyllic (and admittedly beautiful) images of nature, with Dave Grusin’s music playing on the soundtrack. 

Grusin has written a beautiful recurring theme.  It sets an emotional tone that honors the characters and tugs at the heart.  But Grusin overplays his hand, and overwrites his score.  In one glaring sequence, when Norman loses his way and panics, Grusin’s music pours on the dread, in case the audience won’t know how to react.  It would have been more effective to  play the scene without music, using only natural sounds, and allow us to feel Norman’s dilemma personally, making his terror more relatable. 

Some of the humor is badly dated (the word “lesbian” is used a couple times just for a laugh). The screenplay contains some landmines of stereotypically “cute” elderly behavior, for comic effect (like flipping a middle finger, or uttering the words “old poop”).  To the actors’ credit, especially Katharine Hepburn's, they mostly sidestep these hazards.

Hepburn consistently amazes in a breathtakingly physical performance. She is able to modulate her dialog around her pronounced tremor, so that the rhythms are natural, and we can understand every word.  Her exquisite skill in conveying feeling, her eyes and face registering every nuance, her tearful expression of heartbreak, her spontaneous and natural laughter, are the culmination of years of brilliance by this veteran performer.

Hepburn’s Ethel is like an elder version of the strong, supportive wife she played in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”; but here she pulls out all the stops.  She’s a marvel as she powers a motorboat, imitates the loons, delivers dramatic monologues, goes toe to toe with her co-stars, sings and dances an old campfire song, dives in the lake, swims to the rescue, and tearfully tends to Norman in a tense moment.

Henry Fonda is a treasure in this role, which was his swan song.  His Norman is every vulnerable, exasperating elderly relative or neighbor that most of us have ever known. Fonda plays the role gamely, handling his barbs and mind-games, drawling his dialogue in that familiar voice, but creating a unique character, even when the script forces Norman's more frustrating aspects.  

For this role, Fonda won his first, well-deserved Best Actor Oscar, for which he was also a sentimental favorite.  Hepburn nabbed a Best Actress Oscar as well, her fourth, a record that holds today.

Jane Fonda plays a supporting role as their misunderstood grown daughter, still trying to live up to her father’s impossible expectations.  She is wonderful in what is really a thankless job (more later).  Dabney Coleman has a terrific exchange with Norman, and stands up to him gently and firmly, in what may be the best monologue in the script.

13-year-old Doug McKeon, playing Billy, holds his own with the veteran actors, in an amusing display of toughness, while befuddled and mystified by the old man he is forced to spend time with.  His natural progression from resistance to respect, and finally love, holds the center of the film.  McKeon’s and Fonda’s scenes are filled with humorous suspense, surprise, and smiles.

As much as this film moves me, I have some unresolved feelings about “On Golden Pond”.  These feelings were unexpected, and ironic, since I am getting closer to Ethel and Norman’s age.  Criticizing this film feels as though I'm disrespecting my own departed grandparents; but as the script is written, I never really believe in the conflict between Norman and Chelsea.  

Had it not been for the casting of an actual father and daughter duo, I wouldn’t have cared at all.  Fortunately, Jane and Henry Fonda were cast, and are playing out a psychodrama of some kind between them, one that goes beyond the confines of the script.  That makes their relationship intriguing, and worth caring about. 

We are asked to accept Chelsea as a frustrated adult who hasn’t moved on.   There is some business about her not visiting for long stretches, but almost nothing about what happened between her and Norman in her youth, or why they have become alienated from each other.  

In a heated exchange, she accuses him for his over-competitiveness, and his liking to “beat” people (the suggestion of abuse is unfortunate and probably unintended).  The disconnect between them is oversimplified:  Chelsea doesn’t know the model car she rented, which makes Norman grumble.

Later, she must prove herself to Norman by doing a backflip into the lake. That backflip, which she could never do before, is meant to represent all of the ways she disappointed Norman; when she finally does it, she earns Norman’s approval because now, I guess, she is one of the boys.

That Norman does not accept Chelsea on her own merits is never clearly explored. How exactly has she wronged him, besides rarely visiting?  Chelsea is set up to be some sort of a villain; even the loving, understanding Ethel berates her for complaining, slaps her in a sudden fit of anger, and advises her to get on with her life.  

But Norman demonstrates little tenderness for Chelsea, and we don’t get much background beyond the pallid hints that are dropped at intervals.  This is the fault of the writing, and of unimaginative direction.  While the film clearly sets up Norman and Ethel as the golden heroes of the piece, I found myself taking Chelsea’s side, and Ethel and Norman’s united front against her doesn't feel right.

This subplot is a flaw, in my opinion, but it doesn’t diminish the power of the central relationship.  Near the end, when it looks like Norman might be down for the count, Ethel’s outpouring of emotion, and her preparation for mourning, are so real, it is impossible not to feel the pain of a possible loss.  Hepburn utters the film’s most honest sentiment: “This is the first time that I really felt we were going to die…You’ve been talking about death since we met but this is the first time I really felt it.”

Over the last year, the pandemic has made death seem ever-present.  People in their later years are facing their mortality even more than they normally do.  The virus is all around us.  We are constantly reminded of the danger.  Time is slipping away as we isolate ourselves, and hope for a breakthrough. The politics surrounding the disease also add to already unbearable anxiety.

We do what we can to stay healthy, stay calm, stay alive.  Connecting in any way we can with people, keeping physically active, and seeking positive messages help relieve some stress. So do movies, especially when they give us characters who prevail over obstacles we all face.  In times like these, it's a comfort to keep company with characters like Norman and Ethel Thayer, flaws and all.