On Something Unexpected with Labor Day

An escaped convict forces a lonely, agoraphobic single mother into taking him into her home where after some sensual baking experiences they fall in love. The convict, for the weekend he spends with the broken family, becomes a patriarch for the son and a new lease of life for the mother. The convict, somewhat inevitably goes back to jail (no love story is complete without tragedy) and the son becomes a famous chef after witnessing and partaking in some of the sensual kitchen activity. After twenty something years in jail the convict and the single mother are reunited and rekindle their love.

Everything about Labor Day sounds like a trashy middle-aged fantasy novel with a sun drenched book cover with a rugged convict and pretty young single mother. And Labor Day is a novel first (written by Joyce Maynard) and a Jason Reitman film second. That Jason Reitman directed Labor Day is somewhat of a surprise taking his past films into account. That the film is really quite good shouldn’t be a surprise (taking his past films into account), but considering the subject matter is better that you might imagine.

Thank You for Smoking (2005), Juno (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and Young Adult (2011), Reitman’s past features are in parts satirical, challenging, unexpected, pertinent, reflective. Labor Day is a simple, sun drenched love story. There are no unexpected twists as in Up in the Air, no culturally reflective narratives found in Young Adult or Thank You for Smoking. In, fact Labor Day is a historical love story, set during the 80s and feeling older than that.

Therefore Labor Day is an unexpected treat; it looks great, is well acted and genuinely moving. The narrative may at times stray into the realms of the fantastical or ridiculous, but Reitman does his best to keep it firmly down to earth and is mostly successful. Not only different in subject matter, which many of his films are, but different in tone and a welcome variation in both.