Film

Sweet November (2001)

Director: Pat O'Connor

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Master of the blank expression, Reeves is still blessed with those dumb good looks. Which means he's well suited to playing Nelson Moss, a successful ad exec with the emotional range of a cyborg. Before long the high flyer has an improbable encounter with Sara Deever (Theron), a hippy savant who embraces life and instinctively knows that Nelson, bless his Armani socks, must have a heart. Nelson strides manfully about barking into his mobile and obsessed by work. Sara cajoles and harangues him, and after the most perfunctory of rebuffs, Nelson is set to spend one month at Sara's home. That's all the time she believes she needs 'to help'. Opposites attract and the thirty-day sentence becomes - surprise! - 'Sweet November'. Wooden Reeves doesn't cut it as a romantic lead, while Theron's giant cardigans, whooping laugh and 'my giddy aunt' glee only underline her aptitude for a career in kids' TV. Both are hampered by the endless clichés: having fun is always free (playing kiss-chase, walking cute dogs, turning cartwheels); gay men are a troubled woman's best friend (Isaacs' cross-dressing housemate Chas/Cheri); and, of course, the Love Story biggie - wasting diseases leave the sufferer wan but never less than beautiful.

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