I returned for the first time in three years to the old Varsity multiplex — the Toronto International Film Festival’s longtime main press screening venue for years until its move to the downtown entertainment district — today for a private press screening of Jason Reitman’s “Labor Day,” which is utterly unlike the three previous films that hometown boy Reitman (his family donated the land for the TIFF Lightbox) premiered here, “Thank You For Smoking,” “Juno” and “Up in the Air.”
This small-scale gem, which Paramount is scheduled to begin rolling out stateside on Christmas Day, is part coming-of-age drama and part thriller, as well as being swooningly romantic. The protagonist, briefly played as an adult by Tobey Maguire (who also narrates) is a 13-year-old in 1987 New Hampshire boy (Caitlin Griffith) who’s very protective of his emotionally fragile single mother (Kate Winslet, a likely Oscar nominee).
Into their unhappy lives comes a convicted murderer (Josh Brolin) who initially takes mother and son captive. But soon both are won over by this seemingly gentle — if occasionally menacing — man who cooks, mops floors, teaches the son softball and even helps babysit the developmentally challenged son of Winslet’s friend.
In the course of a weekend, they begin making plans as a family to begin a new life in Canada. But will they be able to get away before the folks in their small town get too suspicious?
“Labor Day” requires the audience to suspend disbelief to no small degree. It’s a credit to the skill of Reitman and his cast that he sold a cynic like me on the utterly romantic concept that Winslet would quickly bloom from Brolin’s attention to the point where she would risk her son’s safety, and that the son would let her do this.
Winslet and Brolin have wonderful chemistry together, and Reitman makes well-worn metaphors like steamy weather and pie baking seem newly invented. Flashbacks to Brolin’s earlier life that might seem pretentious and/or corny in less sure hands come off well.
The film that “Labor Day” reminds me most of is Clint Eastwood’s underrated masterpiece “A Perfect World,” which also acutely presented its place and time. That’s high praise indeed.