On Golden Pond

Generation gap tearjerker with Fonda and Hepburn as a septuagenarian married couple visiting their lakeside New England bungalow for their 48th summer together. When middle-aged daughter Jane arrives with boyfriend and his teenage son in tow, the scene is set for the artificial befriending across the generations - Fonda teaches the boy to fish, to read Treasure Island (a 'real' life alternative to chasing girls and television). This adaptation of Ernest Thompson's immensely calculated 1978 play leaves you wishing Jane Fonda's IPC production company had never become involved as she regrets (the relationship she never had with her father), Hepburn flutters, and the elder Fonda mutters (the four-letter words that are supposed to endear him to us as a salty old 'character'). Two of Hollywood's best-loved veterans deserved a far better swan song than this sticky confection.