Labor Day with Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet is a movie for Valentine's Day

LABOR Day, an unusually focused, yet noticeably fragile romantic drama from acclaimed director Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Thank You for Smoking).

LABOR Day. Some people might say that a terminal shut-in like Adele Wheeler (played by Kate Winslet) should get out more.

Those people would be wrong. Just look what happens when this jumpy single mother does open the front door for a rare foray into the outside world.

All it took was for her young son Henry (Gattlin Griffith) to linger too long in the wrong aisle in the wrong department store. Now the pair find themselves being held hostage in their own home by a convicted killer on the run.

So begins Labor Day, an unusually focused, yet noticeably fragile romantic drama from acclaimed director Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Thank You for Smoking).

The story, adapted from a novel by American author Joyce Maynard, is just as capable of intriguing as it is irritating.

The premise immediately gets you in, and gets you wondering where it will be heading. However, certain stops along the way will certainly get on your nerves.

You will know inside 10 minutes whether you will be buying what this mildly mercurial film is selling.

The mugshot of Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin) is all over the news. The police are all over the neighbourhood looking for him.

Like any fugitive fresh out of captivity, Frank is not working to a strategic, step-by-step plan. Making a run for it - by jumping out a hospital window while getting treatment for appendicitis - was the entire plan.

All Frank knows is that he needs to lie low until the coast is clear. He assures Adele and Henry they will come to no harm if they just let him hang around for a few days.

Frank doesn't look like a man who should be trusted. Nevertheless, Adele takes him at his word.

Perhaps only because she forgot how to trust any man in her life a long time ago.

It is no spoiler to divulge that an attraction rapidly takes hold between Frank and Adele. And then something more.

The finer details of how this seemingly mismatched coupling comes to pass remain tantalisingly unspoken for the most part. Largely because the story is filtered through young Henry's delicately innocent perspective.

While Labor Day can strain credibility to the point of becoming totally corny at times, the simple, relatable chemistry worked up by Winslet and Brolin immediately picks the film up after any bad stumbles.

Most of the flaws arise from Reitman's clunky use of flashbacks, which often squanders a lot of hard-earned narrative momentum for precious little return.

A genuinely tense, yet frustratingly tentative final act may also lose Labor Day its share of admirers just when it needs them most.

Again, the actors must work hard to pick up the slack at this very late juncture - particularly the accomplished youngster Griffith, who does a fine job in trying circumstances.

> LABOR DAY [M]

Rating: 3/5

Director: Jason Reitman (Juno)

Starring: Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith, James Van Der Beek

"No rest for the wanted"