Labor Day
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 27, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
22
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ObserverRex ReedJan 29, 2014
It resonates with delicacy, passion and restraint, touching the heart in places where cynics fear to go. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 3, 2013
Reitman keeps a strong grip on all the aspects of the story to prevent it from becoming corny, unduly melodramatic or obvious. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJan 31, 2014
It is a yarn. But it's so full of passion, poetry, and humor that it becomes, for the time, quite real. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 30, 2014
Labor Day is an admittedly strange hybrid. Rarely have I seen such outrageous plot points executed with such lovely grace. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnSep 3, 2013
There's a certain elegant simplicity to the movie's execution that maintains a spirit of familiarity but also keeps the material afloat. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinMar 17, 2014
A tender, nostalgic and warm ‘family’ drama which also quietly seethes with the threat and tension of imminent danger. Labor Day shows a new side to Jason Reitman as a filmmaker, and we like it. Read full review
77
Film.comWilliam GossSep 3, 2013
Jason Reitman’s adaptation of Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day is as consistently assured a piece of filmmaking as any we’ve seen from the filmmaker and very much in keeping with the decreasingly glib nature of his output. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJan 30, 2014
With Labor Day, director Jason Reitman turns a Nicholas Sparks scenario into an Alfred Hitchcock creep-show. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickJan 30, 2014
Winslet and Brolin have wonderful chemistry together, and Reitman makes well-worn metaphors like steamy weather and pie making (the film has been embraced by the American Pie Council) seem newly invented. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 26, 2013
The film finds its footing as the weekend progresses and the temperature and tension — outside and in — rise. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 3, 2013
To the extent that Adele’s hunger for affection resonates with audiences, what emerges is a powerful — if implausible — romance. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJan 31, 2014
We see him (Brolin) whip up a first-class chili, but his specialty is peach pie, which we watch him prepare so lovingly that I was surprised Reitman didn’t include the recipe in the end credits. Read full review
67
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJan 30, 2014
A melodrama that reaches the heart but hardly ever convinces the head. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleLouis BlackJan 30, 2014
The film constantly plays against expectations. Reitman’s skilled direction of the superb cast allows the ridiculous to become poetic, the artificial to unfold naturally, the absurd to achieve a deep romantic resonance. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundDec 23, 2013
A better film would have had the gumption to maintain the poetic bleakness, rather than steer toward what ultimately feels like safe compromise. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeMar 18, 2014
What keeps this out of Nicholas Sparks bumper-paperback territory are terrific performances and Reitman’s control of the drama. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJan 6, 2014
You can love the look of the movie and still not believe a single word of it. To be fair, the climax is surprisingly touching; somehow, the residents of this cooked-up tale manage to earn our pity and support. Read full review
60
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 16, 2013
With its frank approach to the basics of human desire, its steady, intense focus on a small-town story which could have come straight from Douglas Sirk, Reitman's fifth feature appears to bear little resemblance the four that went before. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie OgleFeb 6, 2014
If you can get past the ludicrous fantasy — well, wait, that’s the problem. You can’t get past the ludicrous fantasy. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensFeb 3, 2014
A sluggish romantic drama Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 3, 2014
"Labor" isn't just a word in the title of Jason Reitman's new film, it's a description of what it feels like to sit through the movie. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJan 31, 2014
I can’t pardon Labor Day’s mush, not just because it’s mush, but because it comes with an unappetizing side order of condescension and contempt. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 31, 2014
The pie looks delicious, but Labor Day feels stale. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 30, 2014
It's all bathetic enough for Labor Day to be subtitled The Prisons of Madison County. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 30, 2014
It’s difficult to believe a word of Labor Day, but then again you don’t have to in order to luxuriate in Winslet and Brolin’s bubbling, steaming chemistry. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 30, 2014
This is win-win for everybody, but it's too win-win - a setup that short-circuits drama, that shoehorns a situation into a precooked formulation: He's a real prisoner and she's an emotional prisoner, and each offers the other the possibility of freedom. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJan 30, 2014
While it's nice to see Reitman try to branch out from the hip, acerbic humor of "Juno" and "Young Adult," his clumsiness with this more earnest material is an unpleasant surprise. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 30, 2014
Kate Winslet has such sound and reliable dramatic instincts (That Face doesn't hurt, either) she very nearly makes something of Adele. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 30, 2014
Even with the talent involved, almost everything about Labor Day plays less like something you’d buy a ticket to watch and more like something you’d buy in an airport bookstore to read. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJan 29, 2014
For all its filmmaking care and care-worn performances, is nothing more than a beach book, inconsequential and utterly out of place in January. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJan 22, 2014
With his latest film, the mawkish and melodramatic Labor Day, Reitman has done an unexpected about-face: He's ditched Wilder for Douglas Sirk. And the swap doesn't do him — or his fans — any favors. Read full review
50
The PlaylistChris WillmanSep 3, 2013
A full-immersion exercise in the old-fashioned women's weepie that skews far closer to Nicholas Sparks' brand of contrivance than Diablo Cody territory. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jan 29, 2014
Improbably, this saccharine melodrama comes courtesy of Jason Reitman, the Hollywood scion director who made "Juno" and "Up In The Air." Clearly, he’s chasing a change of pace, a hard right turn away from the sardonic redemption stories that have previously sported his byline and into the unfamiliar realm of Sirksian soap. Read full review
40
NPRBob MondelloJan 31, 2014
Labor Day may be filled with autumn's falling leaves, but it makes sense that they're bringing it out as a prelude to spring, for the sap — and I do mean sap — is rising. Read full review
40
The DissolveScott TobiasJan 29, 2014
Reitman has placed a not-unreasonable bet that sensual creatures like Winslet and Brolin can convey the passion necessary for their relationship to make sense, but the film carries itself too stiffly, like it’s so afraid of making the wrong choices that it doesn’t make any good ones. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJan 28, 2014
The film will do until "Fifty Shades of Grey" turns up. The more you think about Labor Day, the more calculating it gets. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 16, 2013
Though pristinely faithful to Maynard's book, it blurs inexorably into Nicholas Sparks. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireJan 31, 2014
Actors of the caliber of Brolin and Winslet can do nothing but the best with what they're given, struggling to find nuance and humanity in romance-novel archetypes. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia PuigJan 30, 2014
Labor Day feels like a belabored, sappy slog. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 30, 2014
The movie’s a somber affair, but if you see it in the right frame of mind, it’s the guilty-pleasure hoot of the season. Read full review
30
The New York TimesStephen HoldenJan 30, 2014
The movie’s principal saving grace is Ms. Winslet’s convincing portrayal of Adele, a despairing woman of low self-esteem just a twitch away from a nervous breakdown. In almost every other respect, this overbaked romantic hokum is preposterous. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 30, 2014
Labor Day, adapted from a novel by Joyce Maynard, is the kind of movie that turns clarity into stultification; everything is perfectly clear and almost everything — pie-making excepted — is perfectly lifeless. Read full review
30
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonJan 28, 2014
Labor Day is so self-conscious and phony, it must be the work of a pod person. Humans, film lovers, and fans of Reitman's till-now-flawless filmography: We've gotta fight back. Read full review
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