Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures
Visit the film’s official website!
Okay, so Labor Day: I liked it. I really did. But, I wanted to like it more. Like, a lot more.
After all, we have Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin as headliners, under the direction of Jason Reitman (who also wrote it and gave us one of my all-time favorite movies, Juno).
This one works, but barely, and only because the acting is so good it makes you forget just how limp the actual story is: an escaped convict (Brolin) essentially cons/kidnapys a single mother (Winslet) and her son into letting him hideout at their place for five days over the Labor Day weekend. He wants a fresh start. She wants . . . to be useful again. And loved. And beautiful.
The story is framed as a coming-of-age story told from the teenage boy’s point of view (narrated, as an adult, by Tobey Maguire). That’s fine, except that it completely robs the narrative of its emotional power had it simply been told from the point of view of Winslet’s character, who is miles and leagues and galaxies more interesting, complex and disturbing than anything else in the film. She’s been abandoned, neglected and left to rot. The boy wants to save her. She wants to save herself, by saving the convict. It’s really simple, and then not.
Winslet is superb in performance (as you’d expect), and so is Brolin who is now Hollywood’s resident gruff leading man. Reitman does what he can to move the story along, but he pauses too much give us glimpses into the boy’s thoughts, which are really secondary to the overall narrative. A valiant effort, but ultimately misguided and slightly pointless.
View All Photos ›
