Film review: Labor Day

Undated Film Still Handout from LABOR DAY. Pictured: (l-r) Kate Winslet as Adele, Josh Brolin as Frank and Gattlin Griffith as Henry. See PA Feature FILM Film Reviews. Picture credit should read: PA Photo/Paramount. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature FILM Film Reviews.

The heat of unexpected passion scorches two lost souls in Jason Reitman’s handsome adaptation of the novel by Joyce Maynard.

Embellished with a present-day voiceover that harks back to events of one sweltering summer in 1987, Labor Day woos us with stirring performances, Eric Steelberg’s sun-dappled cinematography and Rolfe Kent’s elegiac orchestral score.

Scenes between Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin as the doomed lovers simmer with eroticism, including a glorious set-piece with a homemade peach pie that makes our mouths water.

Fifteen-year-old Gattlin Griffith is equally compelling as the painfully shy teenage son, who witnesses this mending of broken hearts in impossible circumstances.

Yet for all of its impressive qualities – and they are bountiful – Labor Day isn’t quite the sum of its parts. The condensed timeframe of the central romance strains credibility and Reitman’s mosaic of flashbacks creates a fractured chronology that hampers dramatic momentum, dissipating the sense of dread and longing that should permeate every frame.