Labor Day

 LABOR DAY

Director : Jason Reitman

Year : 2014

Genre : Drama

Rating : **

 

While his previous movies 'Juno', 'Thank You For Smoking' and 'Young Adult' were made with a clearly indie sensibility, 'Labor Day' is a much more conventional and altogether different approach to film making from writer/director Jason Reitman. Starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, the film tells the story of an escaped convict who hides out at the house of a depressed mother and her socially awkward son who eventually learn to love him and overlook his troubled past. 

Based on the best selling book by Joyce Maynard, 'Labor Day' is a pretty simple story with a nice message about forgiveness and not judging a book by it's cover and it's cast certainly puts a lot of effort into making their characters believable and relatable. But the film itself is bogged down by far too much melodrama and pathos that it doesn't take long for it to come across as manipulative pandering that cares more about making you cry than giving you believable scenarios or realistic situations. The script written by Reitman himself lacks the wit or humour that he is renowned for and while I am no fan of 'Thank You For Smoking' and I actively despise 'Juno', I must admit that I would have liked a little bit of his trademark acuity and hipster sharpness to combat the many dull scenes and poorly paced storytelling that fill up 'Labor Day's over-stretched 2 hour long running time.