With Jason Reitman on a cycle of releasing a film every two years since his debut Thank You For Smoking, 2011 happens to be a lucky year for fans of the Juno and Up In The Air director. Later this year Paramount will release Young Adult, a comedy/drama starring Charlize Theron that sees a re-team with his Oscar-winning writer Diablo Cody. As for his following project, we seem to finally have concrete info on who will star.
EW reports that Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin have “committed” to join Labor Day, an adaptation of Joyce Maynard‘s 2009 novel. In the film Winslet will star as “a lost, lonesome mother,” while Brolin plays “an escaped convicted murder who takes refuge with her and her young son.”
Reitman spoke to Roger Ebert about the “complex drama” almost a year-and-a-half ago, saying “I re-read it over the weekend and when I finished the book [on] Monday morning, I was kind of on the verge of tears and I remembered at the moment, ‘alright, my job is to make sure the audience feel exactly what I’m feeling right now.’ And that’s it, thats the gig. The test is with each film, ‘can I do that?’ and ‘is that something the audience wants to feel at the end of the day?’ And in this case, I think it is. This ones a very very tricky love story. It’s very dramatic.”
Young Adult is said to be a very unlikable film and I’m quite glad he continues to go in different directions. Handling a unique drama like Labor Day seems to be pushing that idea further. With Winslet and Brolin, he couldn’t get two better actors. The latter next has Men In Black III and Gangster Squad, while the former will be seen in Contagion and Carnage this year, after a fantastic performance in HBO’s Mildred Pierce.
Check out a synopsis of the novel from the official site.
With the end of summer closing in and a steamy Labor Day weekend looming in the town of Holton Mills, New Hampshire, lonely, friendless thirteen-year-old Henry spends most of his time watching television, reading, and daydreaming with only his emotionally fragile, long-divorced mother for company. But everything changes on the Thursday before the holiday weekend when a mysterious bleeding man named Frank asks Henry for a hand. Over the next five days, Henry will learn some of life’s most valuable lessons, about the breathless pain of jealousy, the power of betrayal, and the importance of putting those we care about above ourselves—and that real love is worth waiting for.
From acclaimed author Joyce Maynard comes a beautiful, poignant tale of love, sex, adolescence, and devastating treachery as seen through the eyes of a young teenager—and the man he later becomes.
Labor Day shoots next year in New England.
What do you think about Winslet and Brolin in a Reitman film?