Review // Labor Day

This pie is half-baked…and flaky.

Despite four Oscar nominations and being a mainstay at major film festivals across the globe, Jason Reitman is still a pretty young filmmaker. And while he’s taken on some tough subject matter before, a serious love story takes a deft touch. Reitman’s Labor Day is a valiant effort, but struggles under the weight of it’s premise.

Labor Day stars Josh Brolin as escaped convict Frank, a scary-looking fella who kidnaps a mother and her son, holding them hostage in their own house over the Labor Day weekend. The depressed and agoraphobic Adele (Kate Winslet) soon finds herself drawn to the gruff but gentle kidnapper, while her son Henry (Gattlin Griffin) almost immediately adopts Frank as the attentive father figure he’s been searching for ever since his own father shacked up with his secretary. Outside the house however a man-hunt is underway, as Frank has just broken out of jail where he was serving a life sentence for the murder of his ex-girlfriend. As Frank’s relationship with Adele deepens, the particulars of his crime are revealed in flashbacks, suggesting he might not be the monster he’s being made out to be.

The film is a victim of it’s timeline. Had Reitman decided to set the film over a few months, even a couple of weeks, the film would have stood a chance of being an intriguing romance with an undercurrent of danger. But it’s built upon a ridiculous premise. Almost as soon as Brolin arrives at the house he’s repairing squeaky steps and baking pies with mother and son. In a matter of days Adele and Henry are willing to uproot their entire lives to be with this man. Sure a guy who cooks and cleans is a catch, but really? In a just-coined term around the office, the film suffers under the Bridges of Madison County effect: we just can’t believe that a woman would fall in love with a man in a weekend. Even if it is Josh Brolin (or Clint Eastwood). And especially not when he’s a convicted murderer.

Proving the problem lies in the script, the actors all give convincing performances. Kate Winslet does her bleak, teary-eyed stare as well as ever (though there is a certain “seen it before” quality to it). Josh Brolin’s Frank is the typical handy-dad, tough but fair, with no signs of emotional or psychological scarring from years in a federal prison (not to mention a tour in Vietnam). Griffin is good, but not great as Henry. The only real excitement comes when Tobey Maguire finally appears as a grown-up Henry, and you get to say to yourself “oh that’s who was narrating”. It’s a fine cast doing what they can with the script, but it all seems a little futile.

Reitman has proved himself a skillful filmmaker when his subjects are social misfits, playing unpopular roles in the eyes of society at large. Up In The Air and Thank You For Smoking have fun giving us reprehensible protagonists and daring us to like them. But with Labor Day Reitman takes a step into strangely sappy territory. It’s easy to understand a director worried about getting pigeon-holed, but Reitman would do better to stick with his brand.  If Juno was Garth Brooks, Labor Day is Chris Gaines. Melodramatic, silly and artificial.

If you want to learn how to make a killer peach pie, or need a lesson on how not to act if on the run from the law (hey I’m a wanted felon, let’s go outside and throw the ball around) Labor Day is the film for you. Otherwise, we’ll pass on the pie. It’s fattening anyway.

Reviewed by Evan Arppe.

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