Sweet November

Sweet November may be a work of romantic hokum about a savage power-yuppie (Keanu Reeves) who learns to slow down and discover love in the arms of a quirky, perky girl (Charlize Theron) with a tragic secret--but as such sappy movies go, this is one that hits all the right notes. Theron plays a San Francisco "free spirit" who has a strange habit of taking in, for one month each, stray men who are psychological fixer-uppers. Her latest, quite cynical and reluctant project is the spiritually bankrupt Reeves, whose stop-and-smell-the-roses transformation is altogether quite winning. Even though Reeves falls flat when it comes to this flick's "you complete me"-type romantic climax, director Pat O'Connor (Circle of Friends, Inventing the Abbotts) never lets the movie's hackneyed conventions steamroll over the magnetism between his stars in this charming happy-and-sad romantic remake of the 1968 original with Anthony Newley and Sandy Dennis. Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)