Main cast: Keanu Reeves (Nelson Moss), Charlize Theron (Sara Deever), Jason Isaacs (Chaz Watley), Greg Germann (Vince Holland), Lauren Graham (Angelica), Liam Aiken (Abner), Frank Langella (Edgar Price), Ray Baker (Buddy Leach), Michael Rosenbaum (Brandon), Robert Joy (Raeford Dunne), and Jason Kravits (Manny)
Director: Pat O’Connor
Is this movie for real? Sweet November is ridiculously bad and it feels like an overwrought movie based on a script for a mediocre soap opera episode. Keanu Reeves again rehashes his best impression of a wooden tree repertoire. Charlize Theron plays her Barbie nymphet role with relish, but she is unable to drag this pedestrian movie to the finish line on her own.
It tells the story of Sara who is dying of a terminal disease. Still, she finds time to “rehabilitate” men by boinking them and giving them free counseling for a month per guy. I’m not joking. But still, it’s a good way to go, I must admit. When Nelson Moss, jerk, causes her to blow her driving license, she decides to rehabilitate him too. And Nelson doesn’t play hard to get. Of course, since this is a Hollywood love story, he falls for her.
The romance is like clockwork routine – predictable and short on chemistry from both leads. Then Sara breaks down and the nauseating muzak begins. The ensuing scenes remind me of the melodramatic Chinese soap operas they show on daytime TV here, with ridiculous scenes tossed in just for melodramatic sob-factor (realism or logic be damned). There’s even a gay best buddy of hers to take care of her in her time of need. In Hollywood, gay = drag queen. Sad.
In the meantime, Sweet November has Sara gasping about some ninny “Life is beautiful yidda yibba” hackneyed nonsense. And when Nelson, in his zombie monotone, hawks hot dogs as some new man’s phallic food (I’ve lost my appetite already), I see the light. Sweet November isn’t a romantic drama, it’s a horror movie working to scare me into a cardiac arrest with its surfeit of saccharine sweetness and giggly Pollyanna “I’m dying, but life is be-ooo-ti-foool, heehee!” heroines.
