Writer/director Jason Reitman has proved himself a very capable filmmaker who is able to handle different tones and moods, often within the same film, with the likes of Juno, Up in the Air and most recently Young Adult. It’s a disappointment, then, that he can’t get a handle on his latest film Labor Day, a sappy drama about the loss and possible regaining of true love that’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face.
Based on the novel by Joyce Maynard, the film centres on a depressed and nervous single mother Adele (Kate Winslet) and her son Henry (Gattlin Griffith) who are one day approached at the supermarket by a wounded man named Frank (Josh Brolin), who it turns out is an escaped convict on the run. Frank forces them against their will to take him back to their house to lay low from the police. After first antagonistic, the relationship between Frank and Adele grows as he becomes more and more a fixture of their life as his backstory is gradually revealed.
Despite fine performances, particularly from Winslet and Brolin, Labor Day is a monumentally misjudged look at love and co-dependence, with a script that swerves from the schmaltzy to unintentionally funny to even downright creepy at the drop of a hat. The romance between Frank and Adele is at once trite and ridiculous, never convincing us that their growing fondness for one another isn’t just plain weird, especially when Adele’s dutiful son looks on with passive acceptance that this man who they don’t know from Adam has taken over their quiet, secluded life. Is it supposed to be a look at how a son whose father walked out on him is ready to accept anyone as a father figure? It never delves into that aspect enough to have any sort of emotional effect and seems more concerned with showing just about every card in its deck with a distinct lack of storytelling subtlety.
Frank is presented as this implausibly saintly figure who might as well sprout angel wings and star playing the harp. There are a couple of scenes involving baking a pie that not only verges on the cheesy but flat out falls over the line into comedic; there’s a shot of a pie baking in an oven that’s straight out of a Nigella Lawson cooking show. It’s these scenes that showcase how misjudged the film is as a whole.
Bathed in a perpetual sunshiny glow that wouldn’t be out of place in a Nicholas Sparks adaptation, Labor Day is a major misstep in the filmography of a director who’s usually a reliable talent. It’s not without its tense and touching moments here and there and it’s anchored by admirably committed performances from its central cast. But once we get past the admittedly effective first 20 minutes or so and into that suburban house it becomes a hodgepodge of ill-judged romance and will-he-won’t-he get caught drama. And the whole thing being obnoxiously narrated by Tobey Maguire as an older Henry only adds insult to injury.
Labor Day is released in UK cinemas on March 21st.
