Review of Labor Day (2013) by Nick O — 13 Feb 2014

I respect when a filmmaker tries to make something his or her own. Paul Thomas Anderson with "There Will Be Blood" significantly changed the series of unfortunate events in Upton Sinclair's "Oil!", finding the devil and Daniel Plainview in the sinful details of Sinclair's opus by retrofitting its themes of wealth, power and monopoly onto the big screen. Ditto the Coen Brothers with Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men", Alexander Payne with "The Descendants", Andrew Dominik with "Killing Them Softly", etc. etc.

Think something less novel than cozy paperback -- somewhere between Salinger and "Twilight" -- and you're getting close with Jason Reitman's "Labor Day". By now it's already been through the loop and spit out by critics who called it peachy fluff. They're not wrong. But I'd take a Reitman hinder over an "Awkward Moment" any hot damn September day, even if it means being dragged through the mud. Come off it and give it a chance. It's already halfway there on the laurels of its cast alone. It's 1987. Kate Winslet again shows why she's the greatest screen actress since Meryl Streep in the role of Adele Wheeler, a vacant stare in a dress since the birth of her now 13-year-old son (Gattlin Griffith), both of whose lives are forever changed by the sudden appearance of Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin, excellently channeling his growly hangdog demeanor to equip that of a lost puppy), a recently escaped convict who forces himself upon their home.

"Labor Day" is based on the 2009 Joyce Maynard bestseller of the same name, which writer-director Reitman within its initial year of publication immediately snatched up to adapt. I haven't read Maynard's book, though I can't help but wonder why an A-list whiz like Reitman would have any interest in visually sorting out this degree of melodramatic weepie. My guess is he wanted to infuse a story of a mother through the eyes of her son with mournful Terrence Malick-like transcendence. "Labor Day" isn't much of a feminist piece (and I'm probably putting that nicely) but, quite honestly, this sort of mild-fantasy romantic fiction rarely ever is. And Reitman's built an ace filmography following characters who are broken instead of going out his way to fix them. "Labor Day" is potboiler stuff, but at least Reitman and his actors cook it to something absorbingly sensuous. (61/100).