Labor Day

Bad movies happen to talented filmmakers all the time.  But never did I imagine that the very talented Jason Reitman could strike out as severely as he does with Labor Day, a turgid and melancholy romantic melodrama that's dead almost on arrival.  Just what in the blazes possessed the maker of such fine films as Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air, and Young Adult into thinking that this material was ready to go before the cameras?

The movie wants to be a wistful romantic fantasy, the kind that you usually see the name Nicholas Sparks attached to. (Although, this film is based on a novel by Joyce Maynard.) Even the movies based on Sparks' novels know that you need a reason for the two main characters to come together.  In Labor Day, we get two miserable people with sad pasts who get together, and well, basically seem miserable together.  We never get a sense that they are truly connecting, nor does the screenplay (also credited to Reitman) give them much to talk about.  Speaking of the dialogue, this is one of those movies where everyone recites their lines in hushed, self important tones.  Their voices barely register above a somber whisper at times as they talk like they're trapped in a bad melodrama, which they are.  The movie is painfully slow to begin with, and having everyone talk in such slow, quiet tones makes it downright interminable.

The plot takes place over the titular holiday weekend in 1987.  A lonely single mother named Adele (Kate Winslet) and her equally lonely 13-year-old son, Henry (Gattlin Griffith), live in a ramshackle old house that looks like it's barely still standing.  Henry spends his days taking care of his mother, who is still so heartbroken over the fact that her husband left her a few years ago for another woman, that she has pretty much given up the will to live.  Her hands constantly shake, she never sees or talks to anyone, and the only time she sets foot outside of her house is to make a monthly run to the grocery store for food and supplies.  It's during one of those rare shopping trips that Adele and Henry are approached by a stranger by the name of Frank (Josh Brolin), who is bleeding, nervous, and insists that they give him a ride back to their home.

It turns out that Frank is a fugitive from the law who has recently made a daring escape from the police by throwing himself out a second story hospital window before he was set for an operation. (That's why he's bleeding.) He needs a place to lay low for a little while until he can catch a train out of town.  He does tie Adele to a chair shortly after they bring him home, but to prove that he's not such a bad guy, he cooks them his special recipe for chili, and even tenderly spoon feeds tiny bites of the stuff to Adele while she's tied up, in what must be one of the strangest seduction scenes in recent memory.  Turns out Frank is a wiz in the kitchen.  After he sets Adele free, he teaches her and the boy how to make a fresh peach pie.  We get a scene where Frank and Adele seductively caress the fruit filling with their hands together.  The whole thing brings to mind the clay pottery scene in Ghost, only even sillier.

This Frank is quite a guy.  Within hours of arriving at their home, he's repairing it, changing the oil in the car, fixing the squeaky door, teaching little Henry how to play baseball, cleaning the gutters, doing the laundry, and cooking up mouthwatering dishes in the kitchen.  Why can't every escaped convict who takes people hostage be this nice, sexy, and handy around the house?  Actually, the whole "escaped from prison" backstory is really just a hook.  Henry basically exists as a generic "perfect man" type, who may or may not have a shady past to give him a bit of an edge.  Since Adele and Frank barely share any words during their time together, and don't really talk about themselves, the connection has to be purely physical, and nothing else.  This makes it all the more questionable that, within a few days of meeting each other, they're ready to leave everything behind, run off to Canada, and start a life together.

Labor Day is so heavy-handed with its seriousness, the only way the movie could be possibly improved is to remake it as a parody.  From the corny romance novel-level dialogue, to the voice over narration by Tobey Maguire (as the adult Henry), which feels the need to spell out every single thing that the characters are thinking, this movie brings about more unintentional bad laughs than just about any other recent film I can think of.  It doesn't help that the characters are also incredibly dumb, with young Henry in particular doing things simply so that there can be some tension in the plot.  If you knew you were harboring a fugitive, would you just leave the front door hanging open?  And why is it that every time someone does leave the door open, snoopy neighbors and cops suddenly show up on the doorstep to ask if everything is all right?  It's like they descend upon the house the moment Henry is stupid enough not to close the door after walking back inside.  I started to have a mental image of the neighbors lurking in the bushes just outside, waiting for someone to make a wrong movie, so they could run right up to the door and ask for a favor, or drop something off.

To their credit, Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin are professionals, and take their roles seriously.  And there are a couple nice scenes between Henry and a new girl in town that he strikes up a crush on.  It's too bad this plot ends up going nowhere, as the smart-mouthed girl is easily the most interesting character in the film, and the only thing resembling the usual intelligence and wit that Jason Reitman puts into his films.  These are shallow, simple characters, and despite their best efforts, the actors can't breathe life into them.  Adele is broken, shattered, and needs a man in her life to give her existence meaning.  Frank is kind and an all-around handyman, but troubled, and with a violent past.  The movie is supposed to be about how they fill what's missing in each other's lives, but they're so underwritten, we don't even have a good idea of what it is they're filling in the first place, other than a necessity to sleep with someone.

I'm certain that Jason Reitman will get over this error of judgement, and make a great movie again.  But Labor Day is a huge blotch on what has up to now been a blameless record.  If this film proves anything, it's that he doesn't belong anywhere near romantic cornball tripe such as this.  I could have told him that.

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