Labor Day
“Labor Day,” based on the New York Times best-selling novel by Joyce Maynard, is a lilting melodrama about love, loneliness and second chances that takes place over a three-day Labor Day weekend in 1987. Gattlin Griffith plays 13-year-old Henry Wheeler, a reticent youngster growing up with his depressed and reclusive single mother Adele (Kate Winslet). On a back-to-school shopping trip, Henry and Adele encounter Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin), a man both intimidating and clearly in need of help, who convinces them to take him into their home to mend a wound; he soon reveals that he’s an escaped convict. During his stay, the three form a nuclear family of sorts, with Adele and Frank falling in love and Henry finding in Frank a long-lost father figure. But fate — and the police — intervene to end the reverie. Though packed with nice directorial flourishes and top-notch acting by Winslet, Brolin and Griffith, the film didn’t strike the right chord with audiences, and floundered at the box office. With that being said, it’s still a superb directing-acting vehicle and well worth seeing. Blu-ray extras: Commentary by director Jason Reitman, director of photography Eric Steelberg and first assistant director/co-producer Jason Blumenfeld; “End of Summer: Making Labor Day”; deleted scenes. Vitals: Director: Jason Reitman. Stars: Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith, Tobey Maguire, Tom Lipinski, Maika Monroe, Clark Gregg, James Van Der Beek, J.K. Simmons, Brooke Smith. 2014, CC, MPAA rating: PG-13, 111 min., Drama, Box office gross: $13.362 million, Paramount. 
