Depressed single mom Adele and her son Henry help the wounded, needy Frank with a ride and a place to lay low. As the search for the escaped convict goes on, the mother and son connect with him, coming close to moving with him to Canada.
In 1987, Adele Wheeler is a depressed single mother who lives in a rural home with her 13-year-old son, Henry. While they are shopping, a man approaches Henry and makes them take him home to look after him. The man is revealed to be Frank Chambers, an escaped convict wanted by police.
Through flashbacks, it is revealed that Frank is a Vietnam War veteran who married his pregnant girlfriend, Mandy Chambers. A year after the baby's birth, they had a fight. Frank pushed her against a radiator, resulting in her death, and was put in prison for murder.
As thanks for sheltering him, Frank fixes up Adele's house and performs household chores. In return, she shows him how to dance. Frank teaches Henry to repair cars and play baseball. He also shows Adele and Henry how to bake a peach pie.
Adele and Frank fall in love and plan to escape to Canada with Henry. Meanwhile, Henry develops a friendship with a girl his age named Eleanor and goes to see her. She plays into his fear that Adele and Frank will abandon him and guesses that Frank is the man in Henry's home. Adele later assures Henry that she would never leave him.
The morning of their planned departure, Henry leaves a note in his father's mailbox. While he is walking home, a policeman offers to drive him home, and Henry accepts. The policeman notices the packed car and nearly empty house but eventually leaves. Adele goes to the bank to withdraw all her money, catching attention from the staff.
Henry's father finds the note and calls the house. Before Adele, Frank, and Henry can escape, they hear police sirens approaching. Frank ties Henry and Adele up so that they will not be charged with harboring a fugitive. He kisses Adele, then walks out and surrenders. She wants to help Frank in his case; however, the prosecutor warns her that if she does, Henry might be taken away from her. She writes letters to Frank, but he returns them unopened.
Years later, Henry has become the owner of a pie shop and is featured in a magazine. He is contacted by Frank, who saw the article. He tells Henry he will be released soon and asks him whether he should see his mother again. Henry lets Frank know that his mother is still single and lives in the same house.
Frank gets released and returns to Adele, and they embrace. The couple are shown arms around each other walking down a country dirt road. Henry takes solace in the fact that he does not need to worry about his mother being alone.
In September 2009, it was announced that Reitman was working on a screenplay, based on Joyce Maynard's novel.[4] Talking about the story, Reitman said that "I read it, and I saw the movie in my head. It challenged me in a way that I liked. It was different from everything else I’ve read."[5] He also admitted that it was completely different from his previous work and said that "[it] deals with a very complex drama. And I may not nail it on this film, it may just be my first step."[6] Reitman wanted to make the film right after his 2009 film Up in the Air, but due to Winslet's scheduling conflicts, he chose to direct Young Adult first.[7][8]
Casting
Reitman had Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin in mind for the lead roles.[9] In June 2011, it was revealed that Winslet and Brolin had joined the cast of the film.[10] On casting the actors, he said, "I know what actors I want for it. I'll be able to go to them easily"[6] and that "[Winslet] makes those characters beautiful and sexual. I don’t know another actor who does that. I don’t know what I would have done if she’d said no."[7][11]
In April 2012, it was announced that James Van Der Beek had joined the cast of the film as a police officer and Gattlin Griffith as young Henry Wheeler.[12][13] In June 2012, it was confirmed that Alexie Gilmore, Brighid Fleming, Lucas Hedges and Micah Fowler had joined the cast of the film.[14] Later Tobey Maguire rounded out the cast and joined the film as adult Henry Wheeler.[15][16]
Production began for the film on June 5, 2012.[17] Reitman and the film's art director Steve Saklad searched a number of houses in Massachusetts as most of the film is set inside the Wheelers' home. According to Reitman, "We searched the entire state of Massachusetts for that house. My location manager has never looked at that many locations looking for one place. For weeks we would just drive down the street, knocking on people’s doors. The house we found was perfect but it was very modern. Steve brought it back to 1987."[7]
The soundtrack was composed by Rolfe Kent who previously composed music for Reitman's Thank You for Smoking (2005), Up in the Air (2009) and Young Adult (2011). The album features I'm Going Home from Arlo Guthrie and Here Before from Vashti Bunyan.[27][28] It also contains guitar pieces by Andrés Segovia and Shin-Ichi Fukuda.[29] Talking about the music, Kent said that "You know it’s simple to compose happy or sad music, but to create something simple yet sophisticated, that calls the listener to be curious and yet uncertain and perhaps a little unnerved, well it called me to forget everything I knew about composition and discover a whole new musical language. It was at once incredibly stressful, and deeply rewarding."[30][31] The soundtrack album features three songs.[32] "Wings" from Birdy and "Take Us Alive" from Other Lives were featured in the trailers of the movie.[33][34]
Film Music Magazine's Daniel Schweiger praised the soundtrack as "most impactful insights to the human condition, while completely surprising with its cinematic, and musical authorships."[35] Kaya Savas of Film Music Media gave the album four and a half star out of five and said that "There is beauty, sadness and uneasiness all tackled with a wonderfully calculated approach."[32]
Promotion
The first image of Winslet, Brolin, and Griffith was released on July 23, 2013, along with the announcement of film being selected to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.[36] After its premiere at TIFF, the official poster for the film was revealed on 20 September 2013.[37] The first official trailer of the film was released on October 31, 2013,[38] followed by a second trailer release in November 2013.[39]
Paramount partnered with the American Pie Council (APC) in promoting the film,[40] and the APC produced materials promoting both the film and National Pie Day (January 23, eight days before the film's general American release).[citation needed]
The film was released on DVD + Blu-ray in the US on April 29, 2014.[42] Bonus features include deleted scenes, a "End of Summer: making-of" Labor Day segment, and commentary featuring Reitman, cinematographer Steelberg, and first assistant director/co-producer Jason Blumenfeld.[43][44]
Reception
Box office
The film was opened wide along with That Awkward Moment on Super Bowl weekend. It grossed an estimated $5.3 million in its first three days and ranked seventh on its opening weekend, in domestic box office rankings by Rentrak.[45] The film grossed $13.3 million in the U.S. and $6.9 million in the rest of the world, resulting in a worldwide gross of $20.2 million.[2]
Critical response
According to the aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 34% approval rating based on 200 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin make for an undeniably compelling pair, but they can't quite rescue Labor Day from the pallid melodrama of its exceedingly ill-advised plot."[46] On Metacritic, the film holds an average score of 52 out of 100, based on 43 reviews from mainstream critics, which indicates "mixed or average" reviews.[47] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[48]
Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter, in his review said that "the film emits frequent pangs of emotion and tension, which enable it to prevail over threats from the cliches and inevitabilities of the story's format. There is more than one instance when events will cause many viewers' hearts to leap, as they say, into their throats, and the wrap-up is quietly satisfying."[49] Peter Debruge of Variety stated that Labor Day brims with such carefully observed details, all of them a little too elegant to feel entirely genuine, and yet impossible to fault" and that Winslet "communicates Adele's fragility in a matter of a few short scenes."[50]Mark Kermode of the BBC gave the film a positive review and praised Winslet's performance.[51]
Negative reviews critiqued the film's sentimentality and implausibilities of its plot.[52][53][54] Writing for RogerEbert.com, Christy Lemire said the film is permeated with "a lack of tonal self-awareness" as it swings from scenes of genuine tension to sentimentality.[55] She concluded, "Actors of the caliber of Brolin and Winslet can do nothing but the best with what they're given, struggling to find nuance and humanity in romance-novel archetypes."[55] Others expressed disappointment in Reitman's pivot from the acerbic wit of his previous films Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air, and Young Adult.[56][57]
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