Labor Day

"I'm a lot stronger than you think." "I don't doubt that." Adele and Frank.

Director Jason Reitman is no stranger to unusual family stories (Juno) or character drama (Up in the Air), so his enjoyable Labor Day is a bit of both without the humor. Because this is January, a dead-zone time for releases, it's even more impressive as an audience-pleasing drama about an escaped convict Frank (Josh Brolin) and a mother he kidnaps, Adele (Kate Winslet), along with her 7th grade son, Henry (Gattlin Griffith).

Let's get the formula out now: she falls in love with her captor and the son willingly learns about life and baseball. The real life, however, is hounding them as the law closes in on their 5 days of "family" bliss. However, the authorities are too slow to stop the best family pie making scene ever, domestic stuff just one of charming murderer Frank's gifts and a Reitman specialty.

Recently Mud is similarly about the coming of age and criminal motif and Revolutionary Road with Winslet about a disintegrating family. Yet Reitman and novelist Joyce Maynard have crafted a story that slowly makes believable the growing love between captive and captor, a relationship helped by the classy acting chops of Winslet and Brolin. Although everyone knows helping an escaped criminal leads to serious jail time, this case actually cuts Adele a great deal of slack in the guilty category. As Reitman slowly reveals their mutually grim backgrounds, we are aware that her needs for the touch of a lover are so acute that even this gamble could be worth the risk.

Although Labor Day comes close to Nicholas Sparks' sentimental claptrap, Reitman preserves everyone's dignity, lets love grow, and ushers a kid into a complicated world of love and danger—a labor of love, so to speak, on the film's titular weekend, typically American and hard work: "I sensed my inadequacy," says the adult Henry in voice over. In matters of the heart, we're all inadequate and need films like Labor Day to help us move on.

If you're interested in a good adult romantic drama, look no further than the movie "Labor Day."

Superior acting by Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin and young Gattlin Griffith, this is a story with multi- layered depth and haunting flashbacks through dreams ... some viewers might become impatient as the various dream scenes flicker across the movie screen. Just wait, it's all done with amazing dramatic effect, and when the dream scape finally reveals itself, you'll be impressed with the final story.

More importantly, "Labor Day" displays the under utilized message of the impact of relationships, even though the positive results are revealed many years later.

The soundtrack is unusual and haunting, providing a surreal effect on the entire production.

OK, Josh Brolin has redeemed himself after the disaster of "Old Boy", phew...i was getting worried there as he is one of my favorite actors. this movie is totally different then what i had thought of it in my head. i thought it was gonna be a little bit like the movie " a perfect world " but it was nothing like that.

i was surprised this movie came and went without any fanfare as it really is a good movie and one of my favorites of the year. the 2 adult leads were great and the kid was also very good.

the story is about an escaped convict who gets holed up in a mentally fragile divorcée and her sons home over Labor Day and then what happens the next few days and the consequences of peoples actions even if they didn't mean anything bad by doing such acts.

loved the setting in a slow moving beautiful town atmosphere where it seems like everything moves like molasses, there seem to be a calmness to the picture but right underneath that you could feel the uneasiness and hidden angst of each of the characters in this movie.

also this is a movie about the coming of age of the boy and some of the logical and illogical choices he makes, including one biggg one that has direct consequences for Josh Brolins character.

very very solid movie, bittersweet and moving, almost, but not made me cried. Josh Brolin is back on track again, very good performance from him and everybody involved. one of the must see movies of the year.

This word say nothing. Because the beauty of this film is bitter and hard and melancholic and high delicate. The life of a single mother and her son is changed in profound sense by the presence of a stranger. A love story. And more. A story about chance and a sort of profound America, so familiar to not Americans, a sort of peach pie in the veil of cinnamon. And magnificent performances. Not surprising but a precious gift.

The story was good and I felt myself like watching one of 80i movies, Kate Winslet performance was extraordinary you don't even feel she is acting she is living her role and being so nature in that.