Kurt Loder Reviews Labor Day and Tim's Vermeer

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The world has changed even more than you might have been aware since the 1950s, when Dinah Shore scored a hit with a song called "It's So Nice To Have a Man Around the House." Now, in Jason Reitman's oddly limp new film Labor Day, the man is an escaped murderer, and the woman whose house he's around is a basket-case divorcée who is willing to overlook this considerable shortcoming in exchange for some help with the household chores. Kurt Loder says the movie is thoroughly perplexing. By contrast, Loder finds Tim's Vermeer unexpectedly compelling.