'Labor Day', as narrated by Henry Wheeler (Tobey Maguire) follows the 13 year old version of himself (Gattlin Griffith) as he and his fragile mother (Kate Winslet) bond and quickly grow close to an escaped convict (Josh Brolin) who takes residence in their house over a 3 day weekend.

What made this film so hard to sit through was the complete lack of realistic thinking. Honestly Frank (The convict) wouldn't have been outside if he had just escaped from prison, he wouldn't dare be out in the open for the world to see him, he'd be in hiding. It's the complete disregard for realistic thinking that really made me dislike the film. Over the course of three days Kate Winslet's character Adele had completely fallen in love with him... it's just unrealistic. As much as I want to believe in such a strong love, it just doesn't happen that fast. Never.
As much as the film is unrealistic it tries so hard to make you like it. It really does.

The cinematography is sharp and quite beautiful to look at. The music is well timed and sets a nice tone for the film. The film works in terms of design and setting, its well taken care of. And editing wise, it moves smoothly enough. That's what made it so hard to dislike the film, but I just didn't like it, it's just not good.

The film features a likeable trio of leads in 'Gattlin Griffith', 'Josh Brolin', and 'Kate Winslet'. Winslet captures her character's looneyness in the first few scenes she's in. She and Brolin share nice chemistry and convincingly seem to fall in love even if their romance is rushed way too fast for it to work. And while not a stand out Griffith almost holds his own to Winslet, almost.

Scripting is unfair to that of the superior cast. It rushes the romance of Brolin and Winslet that even their strong chemistry together fails to make an impact. The script tries to provide tension but falls flat of that by offering little to no surprises to raise hairs on your arms. But though very predictable as it is while trying to create tension and unrealistic in terms of pacing and situations it still supplies a solid amount of character development to suit the viewers and does end satisfactory, while one could assume it could've ended worse.

All and All 'Labor Day' features beautiful cinematography and a trio of capable leads with some well fleshed out characters, but the film also follows a sense of unrealistic thinking as well as a script that realizes heavily on predictable tension and hold's little to no surprises.