Review of Labor Day (2013) by Matt C — 01 Feb 2014

This isn't as bad as I thought it would be, and also not as corny. The direction helps it from being bad and the performances are good, but the script does eventually get ridiculous and goes on for too long.

Specifically, there's a narration-based epilogue that isn't really needed and kind of makes the ending not as good as it could have been. It's kind of cool that Jason Reitman is trying something new, but this is not what he should be trying.

He works well with acerbic comedy, but not romantic dramas. He does elevate the material to an extent (for example, the pie scene shown in the trailer isn't nearly as hacky as one would think), but the material also holds him back, even if he did adapt the original novel for the screen.

It's not like this movie made me upset or anything because you can tell that they actually tried, and I appreciate that. They just shouldn't really have been trying on this type of film, but their efforts made it better than one would expect.

It's still not good, though, due to the source material and the script that it caused. 6.1/10, okay, one thumb down, average, etc.