Why would director Pat O’Connor expect anyone to believe the storyline in Sweet November when the lead character, ad executive Nelson Moss (Keanu Reeves of Hardball and The Watcher) can’t even stay true to his character. Yes characters change and develop but he was back and forth and not believable for a moment. In fact melding into the world of Sara Deever (Charlize Theron of Men of Honor and The Cider House Rules) came far too easy for Reeves. Then Theron’s character gave no reason or support, as to why we should take her seriously? It even looked like she was trying to be the Jenna Elfman character Dharma. Back to Reeves where he starts out being this jackass of a person that only gives a damn about his career and screws everything and everyone else. He meets the Theron character and is not supposed to change, but in a matter of seconds (really) she changes him. She is not doing anything endearing or heartwarming to make him evolve and nothing happens to support his complete personality transformation. The fact that a somewhat sane person in San Francisco would have a complete stranger move into her apartment for one month is ridiculous. The concept that a successful, educated man would put up with Theron for one moment is not even plausible.

We meet Reeves treating his girlfriend like furniture. Then we see him in action at work and he is driven. Then we see him taking his written drivers test at the DMV and cheating. Only Theron is the one caught and removed. Afterwards he tries to redeem himself by offering her money to help her get around for the month (she can’t take her test again until 30 days.) She takes his card and shows up later that night at his richy rich secure apartment building and behaves like a psycho. Then Reeves agrees to drive her to Oakland where she commits a felony and he is her escape driver (okay the felony is rescuing animals from laboratory testing but it is still a felony). She coerces him up to her apartment with the threat of more of her antics every night. Any sane man would have had her arrested when she showed up at his home. The idea of going along with her drama was asinine. Then he moves in for November. He met her like October 30^th or about that. She has someone new almost every month. In a matter of days he falls for her. He had a beautiful girlfriend Angelica (Lauren Graham) and he didn’t fall for her. He had other women and nothing. There was nothing special, different or fantastic about Theron’s character. The writer Herman Raucher needed to develop his characters a little more and make them special. Also sticking to the character would have been a small improvement.

Theron’s motives were supposed to be win-win, but from this example and mention of other months it sounded like lose-lose for both parties. If she was supposed to make his life so much better (how was never really determined) all she did was make him unemployed, miserable, without his girlfriend, and best friend/business partner. Oh yeah he forfeited the best job offer he ever had and could have been ultra successful.  Also appearing in this movie was Greg Germann and Jason Isaacs (The Patriot). A little better direction, a little better character development and some acting this might have made a nice story, but this was no Sweet November. I give this film a three on the About-Movies scale.

Last updated: Saturday, October 28, 2006 05:37:40 PM

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