Un giorno come tanti

"I'm a lot stronger than you think." "I don't doubt that." Adele and Frank.

Director Jason Reitman is no stranger to unusual family stories (Juno) or character drama (Up in the Air), so his enjoyable Labor Day is a bit of both without the humor. Because this is January, a dead-zone time for releases, it's even more impressive as an audience-pleasing drama about an escaped convict Frank (Josh Brolin) and a mother he kidnaps, Adele (Kate Winslet), along with her 7th grade son, Henry (Gattlin Griffith).

Let's get the formula out now: she falls in love with her captor and the son willingly learns about life and baseball. The real life, however, is hounding them as the law closes in on their 5 days of "family" bliss. However, the authorities are too slow to stop the best family pie making scene ever, domestic stuff just one of charming murderer Frank's gifts and a Reitman specialty.

Recently Mud is similarly about the coming of age and criminal motif and Revolutionary Road with Winslet about a disintegrating family. Yet Reitman and novelist Joyce Maynard have crafted a story that slowly makes believable the growing love between captive and captor, a relationship helped by the classy acting chops of Winslet and Brolin. Although everyone knows helping an escaped criminal leads to serious jail time, this case actually cuts Adele a great deal of slack in the guilty category. As Reitman slowly reveals their mutually grim backgrounds, we are aware that her needs for the touch of a lover are so acute that even this gamble could be worth the risk.

Although Labor Day comes close to Nicholas Sparks' sentimental claptrap, Reitman preserves everyone's dignity, lets love grow, and ushers a kid into a complicated world of love and danger—a labor of love, so to speak, on the film's titular weekend, typically American and hard work: "I sensed my inadequacy," says the adult Henry in voice over. In matters of the heart, we're all inadequate and need films like Labor Day to help us move on.

This word say nothing. Because the beauty of this film is bitter and hard and melancholic and high delicate. The life of a single mother and her son is changed in profound sense by the presence of a stranger. A love story. And more. A story about chance and a sort of profound America, so familiar to not Americans, a sort of peach pie in the veil of cinnamon. And magnificent performances. Not surprising but a precious gift.

If you're interested in a good adult romantic drama, look no further than the movie "Labor Day."

Superior acting by Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin and young Gattlin Griffith, this is a story with multi- layered depth and haunting flashbacks through dreams ... some viewers might become impatient as the various dream scenes flicker across the movie screen. Just wait, it's all done with amazing dramatic effect, and when the dream scape finally reveals itself, you'll be impressed with the final story.

More importantly, "Labor Day" displays the under utilized message of the impact of relationships, even though the positive results are revealed many years later.

The soundtrack is unusual and haunting, providing a surreal effect on the entire production.

Labor Day is an unbelievably gorgeous mood piece, a finely-tuned film which is strongly driven by senses and emotions over plot or story. It's arguably one of the best films of 2013.

I haven't seen a Reitman film since Juno so I haven't caught up. So I'm not sure where he matured from a 'good' director of a quirky script to an 'art' director who can carry an entire film on his shoulders. That's not to say everyone else in this film didn't do a great job. But the film works because of Reitman's meticulous vision.

Heavy use of cross-fades, editing driven by emotional undercurrent over logic, and some stream-of-consciousness flowing from a mysterious source. The music is avant-garde and beautiful, one moment eerie and unsettling, the next pleasant and lilting. Which reflects the way the film, like a piece of classical music, displays sudden shifts of mood or tonality, back and forth, requiring your utmost concentration and appreciation.

Writing too much else would spoil the fun. But the mindset you should bring this film, should you want to see it, is to give yourself over to the experience, rather than bringing an overly (and unnecessarily) critical mind to it's 'unoriginal' or 'uneventful' plot.

Today I gave my rating for this movie that I really liked. I did not want to write a review but I was a little disappointed by the summary for the movie written on IMDb. It says: "Depressed single mom Adele and her son Henry offer a wounded, fearsome man a ride." Adele and her son do not offer the man a ride which is very important for the story. Having said this, let me say a little about this movie. The movie plays very nicely with fear and tension. Any moment we expect something very terrible to happen. Murder, betrayal, rape, you name it. In contrast, an interesting and amicable relationship between the three main characters develops. The movie even has a happy end that is kind of unexpected. Seeing this movie I felt like being in an earthquake only to learn afterwards that no damage was done.