“Soft Spot in Your Heart”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

LABOR DAY is based on the novel by Joyce Maynard, who was involved with reclusive author J. D. Salinger, and adapted and directed by Jason Reitman, whose previous movies have been comedies.

This movie is not a comedy.

The time is 1987 in a small town in New England, and we meet Adele, a divorced mother played by Kate Winslet, and her son Henry, who is 13 years old.

Henry narrates the story, but his voice is that of Tobey Maguire, who plays Henry as an adult at the end of the movie.

Henry makes the curious comment that his father believes that Adele is getting worse, and Henry says that he could feel his mother’s loneliness before he had a name for it.

Adele and Henry leave their house only once a month to go shopping, and we see them go to a store, where a man, Frank, played by Josh Brolin, approaches Henry and asks for his help.

Frank has blood on his stomach, his leg is hurting, and he asks for a ride. When they get into the car and Adele asks Frank where to, he answers, “Your house, just for a few moments to rest my leg.”

Frank says that he hurt his leg jumping out of a window, and he asks to stay with them until nightfall, when he will leave.

Then they learn that Frank is an escaped prisoner, where he was serving 18 years for murder, but he says that it didn’t happen the way it is being reported.

Frank ties Adele to a chair so that after he is gone, she can’t be accused of helping him, and then he prepares dinner and feeds her.

The next day is Friday, but because it is the Labor Day weekend, Frank is disappointed to learn that there will be no trains coming by, on which he planned to catch a ride.

So, Frank fixes their car, washes and waxes the floors in the house, and even teaches Henry how to throw a baseball.

As the weekend goes on, the relationship among the three gets more complicated, and we learn more about Adele’s condition through flashbacks, which make her more sympathetic.

Frank continues to show a more softer side, too.

LABOR DAY can easily find a soft spot in your heart, as well.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”