Labor Day weekend is a bittersweet event. On one hand it signifies the end of summer; nice weather, vacations, the beach. At the same time, it ushers in the glorious fall season; football, leaves changing, a myriad of great foods and ales, and of course the holiday season.
The 2013 Jason Reitman piece “Labor Day” looked like fall when the previews came out as it appeared to be the makings of a great thriller, but ultimately turns out to be the end of summer as its nothing more than an overly sappy and tripe filled romance film (and a dull one at that).
As a real writer, I shutter at the recent splurge of less than interesting romance type books that have hit the shelves (“50 Shades of Gray” quickly comes to mind), stories that mimic “Sex and the City” in quality and taste – its tough enough as it is to meet women, so lets give them all a false impression of how men should act and relationships should be, thus making an actual reality feel like the aftermath of a heroin trip. “Labor Day” falls into that same genre; based on a novel by Joyce Maynard, it succeeds in its mission of giving women a false sense of what love actually is.
The premise of the story is a seemingly interesting one. An escaped convict (Josh Brolin) takes shelter in a quiet home, holding hostage a single mother (Kate Winslet) and her thirteen-year-old son (Gattlin Griffith). Taking place over Labor Day weekend, the unbelievable malarkey begins right away as Brolin’s character “abducts” his two victims from a grocery store in the middle of the afternoon. With escape and safety there for the taking, one can’t help but wonder how awful a mother would have to be to allow an unarmed man to abscond with her only child – no matter how dreamy the perpetrator’s eyes may be.
Through a confusing labyrinth of flashbacks, it is of course revealed that Brolin’s character didn’t really commit the murder he was imprisoned for (what a shock) – it was just an accident, and he’s completely innocent, don’t you know. And of course Winslet is single because her average looking husband left her for another woman. The two timing snake!
“Labor Day” has an occasional suspenseful moment or two, but otherwise nothing else happens. No one is suspicious that a woman never leaves her house (how she pays her bills or acquires food is never explained) and the pair somehow manages to fall in love with each other in just a dozen or so hours.
Brolin comes across as painfully phony, as an image every woman conjures in her mind of the ideal man; perfect hair and teeth, a Barry White style raspy voice, a guy who’s sort of a bad boy (but not really since he’s innocent) and can fix anything and everything around the house in a way that would make even MacGyver impressed. I would just call my landlord, or learn to live around it. Guess I’m not a man’s man.
“Labor Day” features cameos by one of my all time favs, James Van Der Beek, though he’s a bit unbelievable in his brief role as a police officer, and Tobey Maguire as the narrator. I still have no idea how it got a rating of PG-13.
I would have liked to see a handful of other twists and turns in the story that would have made it more interesting, but that would have upset the target audience of Joan Q. Housewife, and thus cost Ms. Maynard millions of dollars.
So as we welcome the incredibly great fall season 2014, and you begin to stock up on movies, I’d skip “Labor Day.” Women will swoon, men will roll their eyes, and the smart will find something else to watch.
by – Matt Christopher
