"Labor Day" takes some highly improbable material and somehow makes it work - up to a point, at least.
In fact, it's kind of hard to know exactly what to make of "Labor Day" at first blush. The movie, based on the novel by Joyce Maynard, tells the tale of a love- and sex-starved single mother (Kate Winslet) who falls in love with the "dreamy" escaped convict (Josh Brolin) who's holding her and her 13-year-old son (Gattlin Griffith) hostage in their rural home on Labor Day weekend 1987. For about the first 45 minutes or so, the movie actually seems to be endorsing the rather insulting romantic premise that all an attractive young woman needs to spice up her life is a gutter-cleaning, pie-making, baseball-instructing, son-loving man to come along and sweep her off her feet -.criminal background be damned. But as the focus of our attention shifts from the two unlikely lovers and onto the son who's observing and ultimately commenting on this bizarre situation, the movie deepens into an off-beat and thought-provoking look into the complexities of human nature and of familial relationships (Tobey Maguire provides the narration as the grown-up Henry and makes a brief appearance later in the movie).
Winslet, Brolin and Griffith all give remarkable performances, as do Robert Clark Gregg and James Van Der Beek in supporting roles. Jason Reitman's moody screenplay and muted direction achieve a dreamy, almost hallucinatory quality that transports the tale to the realm of allegory or fable, where credibility doesn't play quite so crucial a role in our overall appreciation of it (a young girl's noting the parallels between what's happening here and the highly fictionalized and romanticized "Bonnie and Clyde" puts the theme into sharp focus).
The movie constantly blurs the line between good and evil, and makes it clear that most things are never quite as clear-cut or as black-and- white as people choose to believe they are, especially when it comes to affairs of the heart.
It's a shame that, after all this, the authors just couldn't resist tacking on a Lifetime Channel-like coda that indulges in all the dime- novel slickery and sentimentality that they've admirably managed to avoid for most of the movie up to that point. Still, "Labor Day" largely triumphs over its potentially troublesome material with its quality performances and direction.
In fact, it's kind of hard to know exactly what to make of "Labor Day" at first blush. The movie, based on the novel by Joyce Maynard, tells the tale of a love- and sex-starved single mother (Kate Winslet) who falls in love with the "dreamy" escaped convict (Josh Brolin) who's holding her and her 13-year-old son (Gattlin Griffith) hostage in their rural home on Labor Day weekend 1987. For about the first 45 minutes or so, the movie actually seems to be endorsing the rather insulting romantic premise that all an attractive young woman needs to spice up her life is a gutter-cleaning, pie-making, baseball-instructing, son-loving man to come along and sweep her off her feet -.criminal background be damned. But as the focus of our attention shifts from the two unlikely lovers and onto the son who's observing and ultimately commenting on this bizarre situation, the movie deepens into an off-beat and thought-provoking look into the complexities of human nature and of familial relationships (Tobey Maguire provides the narration as the grown-up Henry and makes a brief appearance later in the movie).
Winslet, Brolin and Griffith all give remarkable performances, as do Robert Clark Gregg and James Van Der Beek in supporting roles. Jason Reitman's moody screenplay and muted direction achieve a dreamy, almost hallucinatory quality that transports the tale to the realm of allegory or fable, where credibility doesn't play quite so crucial a role in our overall appreciation of it (a young girl's noting the parallels between what's happening here and the highly fictionalized and romanticized "Bonnie and Clyde" puts the theme into sharp focus).
The movie constantly blurs the line between good and evil, and makes it clear that most things are never quite as clear-cut or as black-and- white as people choose to believe they are, especially when it comes to affairs of the heart.
It's a shame that, after all this, the authors just couldn't resist tacking on a Lifetime Channel-like coda that indulges in all the dime- novel slickery and sentimentality that they've admirably managed to avoid for most of the movie up to that point. Still, "Labor Day" largely triumphs over its potentially troublesome material with its quality performances and direction.