I caught Jason Reitman‘s Labor Day in Toronto and wow what a disappointment. I’ve never read the Joyce Maynard novel it was adapted from, but it may as well be a Nicholas Sparks adaptation for all I care.
Here’s a snippet from my review that sets up the story and also speaks to one of my biggest issues with it outside the “peach pie” schmaltz:
Labor Day has something of an identity crisis as it’s unsure which character it wants to focus on. The voice over that introduces the film is read by Tobey Maguire playing an older Henry Wheeler, the young 13-year-old (Gattlin Griffith) seen throughout the entirety of the film, and son to Adele (Kate Winslet), a woman that has retreated within herself forcing Henry to be the man of the house….
Shopping for school clothes just before Labor Day weekend, Adele and Henry are confronted by escaped convict Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin) at the local Pricemart. Bleeding and limping, he convinces them to take him to their house where he can rest for a spell and then be on his way…
This film can’t decide if it’s about Adele, Frank or Henry and Reitman can’t balance the wealth of emotions the three bring to the story. Obviously both Adele and Henry are longing for a male in their lives, but both for different reasons. Frank seems to qualify as savior for both, but at the same time the living situation is ridiculous. Then you add Frank’s story into the mix and not only does it feel entirely disingenuous, but the way in which Reitman uses flashbacks to add additional layers to both his and Adele’s characters you can’t help but feel manipulated, not to mention confused as neither seem to really be fully fleshed out or complete.
Paramount has yet to release a trailer, but today has released the first poster for the film, which you can see below. Labor Day is slated for a limited, Christmas Day release and with the questionable Oscar prospects of Nebraska and the mixed word of mouth on this one, everything Oscar-related for the studio seems to center on Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street, which we haven’t heard a peep from in some time…
