Labor Day is a 2013 American drama film written and directed by Jason Reitman, based on the 2009 novel by Joyce Maynard.

[3] In 1987, Adele Wheeler is a depressed single mother who lives in a rural home with her 13-year-old son, Henry.

Through flashbacks, it is revealed that Frank is a Vietnam War veteran who married his pregnant girlfriend, Mandy Chambers.

Adele confides in that she had a number of miscarriages after Henry, culminating with the full-term stillbirth of a baby girl.

This has left Adele with severe anxiety and depression, which her husband later explains to Henry as the reasons their marriage failed.

As thanks for sheltering him, Frank fixes up Adele's house and performing assorted household chores.

Meanwhile, Henry develops a friendship with an intelligent and rebellious girl his age named Eleanor, and goes to see her one more time.

Frank ties Henry and Adele up, so that they won't be charged with harboring a fugitive, then walks out and surrenders.

"[7][11] In April 2012, it was announced that James Van Der Beek has joined the cast of the film as a police officer and Gattlin Griffith as young Henry Wheeler.

[12][13] In June 2012, it was confirmed that Alexie Gilmore, Brighid Fleming, Lucas Hedges and Micah Fowler had joined the cast of the film.

[18][19] The filming locations included Acton, Belchertown, Shelburne Falls,[20] Ashland, Sutton, Mansfield, Maynard, Natick, Medfield, and Medway, Massachusetts.

[21] Filming moved to Acton and scenes shot around Piper Road and at a house located in the area.

"[35] Kaya Savas of Film Music Media gave the album four and a half star out of five and said that "There is beauty, sadness and uneasiness all tackled with a wonderfully calculated approach.

The website's critical consensus states: "Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin make for an undeniably compelling pair, but they can't quite rescue Labor Day from the pallid melodrama of its exceedingly ill-advised plot.

[48] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter, in his review said that "the film emits frequent pangs of emotion and tension, which enable it to prevail over threats from the cliches and inevitabilities of the story's format.

"[49] Peter Debruge of Variety stated that Labor Day brims with such carefully observed details, all of them a little too elegant to feel entirely genuine, and yet impossible to fault" and that Winslet "communicates Adele's fragility in a matter of a few short scenes.

"[50] Mark Kermode of the BBC gave the film a positive review and praised Winslet's performance.

[52][53][54] Writing for RogerEbert.com, Christy Lemire said the film is permeated with "a lack of tonal self-awareness" as it swings from scenes of genuine tension to sentimentality.

[55] She concluded, "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.

"[55] Others expressed disappointment in Reitman's pivot from the acerbic wit of his previous films Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air, and Young Adult.