Labor Day

"Taking a hard left into total straight-faced drama, filmmaker Jason Reitman (Young Adult, Up in the Air) puts Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin in this Stockholm syndrome romance that treads uncomfortably close to last year’s Safe Haven. Through her trembling demeanour and frightened antelope-like glances, Winslet excels in portraying the years of stress that have depleted her agoraphobic character’s agency and Brolin is also consistently solid as her “captor” and love interest."

"“Labor Day” brims with such carefully observed details, all of them a little too elegant to feel entirely genuine, and yet impossible to fault."

"Led by first-rate work from Winslet and Brolin, Labor Day is a skilful, old-fashioned drama from a maturing director. Cynics, however, need not apply."

"The film will do until "Fifty Shades of Grey" turns up. The more you think about Labor Day, the more calculating it gets."

"Seems designed for the crowd that devours Nicholas Sparks’s romantic daydreams."

"Jason Reitman's fifth film is a marked departure for the director that serves up juicy roles for Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin."

"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."

"Nuanced, superbly acted love story with a most unusual genesis."

"A tender, nostalgic and warm ‘family’ drama which also quietly seethes with the threat and tension of imminent danger."