ON Golden Pond review
...an doesn’t have any teenage grandsons, and Billy’s grandparents are both dead, so it is a new experience for both. Billy also brings a cocky, rebellious attitude with him because he wants to fit in at home, so he tries to act cool wherever he goes. This eventually fizzles out and he becomes a pleasant young man whom Norman and his wife, Ethel, come to like, enjoy, and get along with very well. These two main characters, Norman and Billy are both extremely believable and typical, but also unrealistic and fictionalized in ways. Norman seems like a typical eighty Ide 2 year old in that he seems to be unwilling to change and at many times grumpy and difficult to handle. He follows most psychological studies in that he is in either one of two moods; the first where everything in life is meaningful and precious, and the second where everything is meaningless and pointless where one just waits to die. At the beginning of the movie he is clearly the latter, but by the end he seems to have turned around to the first after making friends with Billy and amends with his daughter, Chelsea. You can see some of his memory start to go, as illustrated in the scene where he gets lost picking berries in the woods and panics. He seems to treat the nice mailman Charlie whom he has known for a long time somewhat harsh. He thinks that other people break the screen door when he saw it break for the first time, and even forgets his phone number. The last example could be because of all the information he has accumulated over the years, and due to a simple mixing up of that information, but it also shows that aging process. Although he turns out to have a positive relationship with Billy, that in itself seems slightly fictional. Billy appears very different at first and I would doubt if Norman would become that good of friends with Billy, if he became friends with him at all, in real life. Also by the end of the movie, it seems as if Norman has forgotten all the years of tension between him and his daughter and that it is some miracle and they are best friends now. And by the end of the movie, in the stint when he has a sudden heart palpitation, it appears as if he is as good as ever after his attack, which in real life might not be possible, and at worst could have been life-threatening given his age. Now as for Billy, he seems like a typical teenage boy, and I could see him becoming more tolerant of Norman much quicker that Norman of Billy. I don’t think that Billy would have took time to think what an educational experience he could gain from Norman being that he is only thirteen, although I do think that he would take advantage of Norman’s friendship in real life, seeing as it was the only thing to do in such a remote summer area. The other characters in the film were also believable, but didn’t have many drawbacks because they weren’t focused on as much. Ethel, Norman’s wife, was a sweat old lady, about ten years younger than Norman, who kept the family together. She was more than pleasant to anyone and everyone she interacted with, and kept the same positive attitude that her life was very meaningful as I discussed before. She took pride in everything she did and loved every bit of her happy life. At times she would act as the enforcement to Norman and Billy, and was responsible for many things throughout the movie. She helped rescue the two when they ventured into Purgatory Cove and crashed their boat, pleaded with Norman to let Billy stay, welcomed Chelsea and Bill, and kept Chelsea’s thoughts about her father optimistic, especially at the end. Chelsea and Bill, who went away and got married in Europe, were not in much of the movie but played a large part in the outcome. The reason Billy stayed at Golden Pond was because of their trip, and the whole point of the movie also involved the struggle that was the relationship between Chelsea and Norman. Bill didn’t have that large of a role in the film, but Chelsea did. It is evident that the relationship between Norman and Chelsea is a strained one, and especially strange how Chelsea calls her father by his first name, Norman, and not as “dad” or “father”. One of my observations, however, is that Norman kind of found his lost relationship with his daughter in the one Ide 3 he has with Billy, eventually making the transition to a positive relationship with Chelsea. Another interesting point is how Norman repeatedly calls Billy “Chelsea”, whether it was a point to make about old age, or how he desperately wanted to have a real relationship with Chelsea because he is getting older. In general, the characters are very believable and although the ending could be questionable, I believe that the events of the movie transpired enough evidence to mold the ending into a believable one. Because it is a movie, there must be some things that lack in believability, but I feel strongly enough to say that this film has eliminated most of the typical movie fallacies. Not only was the setting near perfection for this type of movie, but the characters were portrayed so accurately that it seems as if I could name people that I know who fit the description for each character. Because Chelsea and Bill weren’t involved in the action too often, it was hard to get a feel for them. However, I really liked Bill it seemed as if he was an intell...