On Golden Pond: Critic Reviews

On Golden Pond is a mixed blessing, but it offers one performance of rare quality and three others that are very good. That's not half-bad.

Watching the movie, I felt I was witnessing something rare and valuable.

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.

Without question, these are major, meaty roles for Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda, and there could have been little doubt that the two would work superbly together.

Valuable lessons in loving one's family members.

Fonda was 75 when this picture was made and must have known he didn't have much time. There could have been no finer final curtain for him than this.

This family melodrama about aging, mortality, and reconciliation is more significant as a social than artistic event: It's the only teaming of Henry Fonda (who won an Oscar) with daughter Jane (who produced it for him) and also with screen icon Hepburn.

Two of Hollywood's best-loved veterans deserved a far better swan song than this sticky confection.

Wonderful to get one last sweet visit with Mr. Fonda and Ms. Hepburn.

Stellar cast in left field family values classic.

On Golden Pond is a thematically rich drama exploring marriage, aging, family conflict, death and dying.

A manipulative, Oscar-ready mainstream drama. But surprisingly, it's not a bad movie.

Classic drama. Moving exploration of old age.

Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn both shine in an impressively executed Hollywood drama.