Reviews for this film from our members:
- José Arce @ LaButaca.net [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Peculiar thriller dramático/romántico de Jason Reitman que necesita de la complicidad del espectador para funcionar del mejor modo posible. Si uno se deja llevar por la retro-torridez y las necesidades afectivas de los protagonistas, no está mal.
- Edwin Arnaudin @ Ashvegas
- Excerpt: For the first time in his short but illustrious career, Jason Reitman struggles to both skillfully tell a story and motivate a cast.
- Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire
- Excerpt: It lacks the smooth confidence of Reitman’s earlier films; it doesn’t seem to come as easily to him as they did. But if he can manage to fuse the zip of those pictures with the weight of this one, his next film should really be something.
- Luke Bonanno @ DVDizzy.com
- Excerpt: Yes, Reitman has made a tender movie for moms, which is uncharacteristic given his past films, particularly the prickly and polarizing Young Adult. But it’s a well-crafted, well-acted drama you’d feel much better about buying Mom than the latest Nicholas Sparks drivel.
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: The story of three lonely and vulnerable people who forge their own improvised family over a five-day period.
- Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: Between longing stares and the most incestually erotic peach pie baking ever seen on the big screen, we get what amounts to a Lifetime TV movie with bigger stars and a better production value.
- Bill Clark @ From The Balcony
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: In adapting Joyce Maynard’s romantic coming of age drama, Reitman attempts a serious change of tone and fumbles.
- [New – 3/27/14] | Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Desconozco si la novela de Joyce Maynard en la que se basa funciona mejor que el film, pero “Una vida en tres días”, a pesar de estar hecha con mucho gusto y tener un gran reparto, es aburrida y completamente increíble.
- Kimberly Gadette @ Doddle
- Excerpt: What ‘Knocked Up’ did for pudgy slacker potheads, ‘Labor Day’ is now doing for escaped convicts.
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Soggy, often silly romantic melodrama
- Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: However the most ridiculous sequence is an extended cooking demonstration in which Frank teaches mother and son how to bake the perfect peach pie. Each brand name ingredient lovingly framed at camera level ostensibly so the audience can go buy the correct ingredients when they make the recipe at home.
- Travis Hopson @ Punch Drunk Critics
- Dustin Jansick @ Way Too Indie
- Excerpt: The paint-by-number approach results in a contrived melodrama that lacks any real impact.
- MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A gooey nostalgic look back at that time a young boy’s mom fell in love with their kidnapper, presented under a sexy sweltering summer haze.
- Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Surely flawed but unusual and undeniably captivating, “Labor Day” somehow avoids the soap suds of its maudlin, ooey-gooey ad campaign misguidedly cued to Rihanna’s “Stay.”
- Benjamin Kramer @ The Voracious Filmgoer
- Kristin Dreyer Kramer @ NightsAndWeekends.com
- Marty Mapes @ Movie Habit
- Excerpt: Tension and sensuality work in otherwise obvious tale
- Piers Marchant @ Sweet Smell of Success
- Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Ross Miller @ Thoughts On Film
- Excerpt: A sappy drama about the loss and possible regaining of true love that’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face.
- Pat Mullen @ Cinemablographer
- Excerpt: Review from the Toronto International Film Festival
- Frank Ochieng @ Focus of New York Magazine
- Excerpt: Reitman’s big screen manipulative and synthetic soap opera has more gallons of sap stored in its trunk than a century-old Vermont maple tree waiting to be tapped…relentlessly mush-driven and misguided…
- Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
- Excerpt: Labor Day might be shamelessly indulgent melodrama, but in an age of overtly self-aware wink-wink filmmaking, this kind of Douglas Sirk throwback is almost a breath of fresh air. At the very least, the talent involved helps elevate this one above the usual Nicholas Sparks adaptations that hit screens each year.
- Thomas Santilli @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: Winslet and Brolin’s dedicated performances save Labor Day from being awful, just barely.
- Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: There’s almost a movie — one with serious incest issues — hiding somewhere in writer/director Jason Reitman’s bleary attempted adaptation of Joyce Maynard’s novel.
- Josh Spiegel @ Sound on Sight
- Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: A plodding, mushy melodrama in Nicholas Sparks mode.
- Amber Wilkinson @ Eye For Film
- Excerpt: On paper, some of this must have looked good – the dappled sunlight falling through the trees or flashback scenes of waving cornfields caught in a dusky glow. In practice, however, it all feels too manufactured.
- Andrew Wyatt @ Look/Listen (St. Louis Magazine)
- Excerpt: While inferior to Clint Eastwood’s A Perfect World—with which it shares several elements—Labor Day is nonetheless the sort of solid American drama that has become distressingly rare of late.
