Long time readers of this project (both of you) probably already know my general feeling about Keanu Reeves as a romantic lead. That is, I hate it.
There aren't a lot of other movies in this genre so far, the only two I can think of off the top of my head are "A Walk in the Clouds," which was perfectly acceptable if not really my cup of tea and "Tune in Tomorrow," which was trash. Unfortunately, I know I have at least a few more of these coming.
Okay..."Sweet November..."
Ugh.
I don't even want to write about this movie.
There is a wonderful movie I love called "They Came Together," which at least six other people on the planet have seen. The movie basically spoofs every trope and cliche from every romcom ever made and it is the best. I'd much rather spend the next twenty minutes of my life writing about that movie than "Sweet November," but unfortunately, that's not the plan.
The only reason I bring up this far superior movie is that the underlying joke about "They Came Together" is that they are actively and knowingly spoofing every trope in romantic comedies whereas "Sweet November" appears to be completely unaware of exactly what it is.
As always, complete spoilers ahead.
Okay, as a quick disclaimer, "Sweet November" is not a romantic comedy, it actually falls under a romantic sub-genre of movies referred to as "terminal romance," a thing I did not know existed until I started doing some cursory research before sitting down to write this.
A terminal romance is basically what it sounds like - it's a love story where someone is either going to die or is dying. And apparently, there are a lot of movies like this, most of which I have never, and will never watch. As far as I'm concerned, there is only one terminal romance movie that is any good, the 1971 movie "Harold and Maude," which is more or less a perfect movie. And at least in that one, the person who is dying happens to be 70 years old and not, you know, a hot 20-something year old like most of the rest of these.
As an aside, I'm not sure if it counts because I've only seen the last few minutes, but "Remember Me" is sort of a surprise terminal romance, because at the end of the movie (SPOILERS FOR "REMEMBER ME" AHEAD), Robert Pattinson dies because of Surprise 9/11. From my understanding, this has nothing to do with the previous 90 minutes of the movie, which is just such a ballsy (and absurd) way to end your romantic film.
What was I talking about?
Oh, right. "Sweet November." This fucking wretched movie.
Okay, so this movie is basically one giant cliche where a big-time ad exec (the first of MANY tropes and cliches), in this case played by our hero Keanu Reeves meets a manic pixie dream girl (in this case played by Charlize Theron), they have a short-lived romance, and then she dies from leukemia.
Everything about this movie sucks.
At one point I stopped counting tropes and cliches because I lost track, but here's a handful of them:
*Keanu as an ad executive (already mentioned, but just want to throw it in again because HOW MANY FUCKING AD EXES ARE PORTRAYED IN ROMANTIC MOVIES?)
*Non-committal leading man
*Dropping groceries during a meet cute (which I'll come back to momentarily)
*Sassy black secretary
*Eccentric manic pixie dream girl as leading woman
*Leading man is fired from job
*Running on the beach with dogs
*Autumn dating montage (expertly spoofed in "They Came Together)
*"I've known you for a month, let's get married!"
Because I really don't feel like writing much about this movie, let me just take a paragraph or two to talk about the meet cute, because it might be one of the dumbest ones in film history.
Keanu Reeves has to go to the DMV to renew his driver's license. But apparently in San Francisco (oh, another trope), in order to renew your driver's license, you have to take a full-on written exam (there's no possible way this can be true, who the fuck wrote this movie?). So Keanu Reeves leaves in the middle of a workday to head to the DMV. He sits down to take his test in a room full of adults (no teenagers there to get their driver's license that day I guess), when Charlize walks in to take the test, but WHOOPS, spills her groceries all over him.
 |
| Oh, you know, just how we all renew our driver's licenses in 2001 |
Meanwhile, Keanu is apparently too stupid to know the answers to anything, so he tries to cheat off of her, but they are caught by the proctor, yet only Charlize is marched to the front of the room where she's told she has failed her test for cheating and needs to come back next month. Then, because she's pissed off, she waits for Keanu at his car and demands he drive her around because he's the reason she didn't get her license renewed.
 |
| Um, excuse me miss, but do you mind getting the fuck off my car? |
I mean the whole thing is completely fucking asinine.
Anyway, Keanu's girlfriend, Lauren Graham of "Gilmore Girls" fame leaves him and Keanu gets fired from his job after a hot dog proposal gone horribly wrong (oh fuck, I guess I'll get back to that in a moment as well), so he decides to take Charlize Theron up on her offer to move in with her in her amazingly fancy apartment/house in the heart of San Francisco, because that's just a thing she does with a different guy every month because SHE'S JUST SO FUCKING ECCENTRIC (and also dying from cancer, which we find out about in the late second act).
 |
| He's got ten televisions to watch while he's on the treadmill, and they're all tuned to commercials because, DO YOU GET IT? HE WORKS IN ADVERTISING! |
Okay, back to the hot dog pitch for a second. Keanu is supposed to be this big-time ad executive (we know this because he tells his boss he's won not one but TWO Clio awards), yet he's working on the big advertising campaign for...a hot dog company? Yes, a hot dog company.
 |
| No, not THIS Cleo |
Except the problem is that Keanu has way oversexualized hot dogs, loses the proposal, flips out, and gets fired by his boss. This actually might be the best part of the movie, if only because of how over the top his performance is here. Go ahead, watch for yourself.
Where was I?
Oh right, so Keanu movies in with Charlize at this point, because why not, and she teaches him to loosen up a little and the two of them fall in love. When I found out she was dying of cancer I was actually a little happy because it meant that this movie was going to have to end at some point soon.
There are just so many other atrocious parts of this movie that if I wrote about all of them I'd be here for another three hours so I'm just going to mention two of the worst:
Charlize apparently knows everyone that lives on her block (because of course she does), including the latchkey kid named Abner that lives down the block (who the fuck names their kid Abner?). There are maybe two scenes of Keanu with Abner (including a ludicrous remote controlled boat race where Keanu pays off someone with a remote controlled submarine to destroy all of Abner's opponents, I swear to god this is a thing that happens in this movie). When Keanu tells Charlize that their deal is over and he wants out, she tells him that he has BECOME A FATHER FIGURE TO ABNER, A KID HE HAS HUNG OUT WITH ONCE, IN ORDER TO GUILT HIM INTO STAYING, WHICH WORKS.
 |
| Hey, Little Abner? Get fucked. |
There is also a scene that takes place during Thanksgiving, where Keanu climbs through her window, dressed (sort of) as Santa Claus, to deliver her 12 presents for Christmas, and this MOVIE HAS HIM ANNOUNCE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, with the penultimate present being a DISHWASHER THAT HE CLIMBED THROUGH A WINDOW WITH.
 |
| Merry Fucking Christmas. To NOBODY. |
I don't know if my tone is coming across or not, but this movie treats its audience with such little regard for intellectual capacity that it made me not only hate Charlize Theron in this movie, but Keanu as well.
Anyway, the movie ends with Keanu and Charlize's last moment together before she disappears off-screen, only to (ostensibly) die from cancer within a few days.
This movie is atrocious.
Just a few side notes for this one because my head is about to explode:
*Charlize has a downstairs neighbor, who just happens to be...a rival ad exec to Keanu as well as a cross-dresser because why not, right?
 |
| This is a thing that happens, for no particular reason |
*This movie plays the same exact Enya song TWICE. Don't get me wrong, I love Enya as much as the next guy, but you couldn't find a second Enya song?
*Keanu Reeves sings in this movie, and I'm near certain it's actually him singing. I don't think you're going to be seeing him in Cats 2 anytime soon, but the man can carry a tune.
*If you're going to put Charlize Theron in your movie, why oh why are you going to have her dress like Frumplestiltskin throughout? She looks like a hobo for most of this movie.
BEST PART: Keanu's rant, as embedded above. It's so fucking stupid you just have to laugh.
WORST PART: Trope after trope, cliche after cliche, this movie is a fucking trainwreck.
Box Office Information: $25 Million Domestic/$40 Million international for $65 Million worldwide ($40 Million domestic inflated adjusted) on a $40 Million budget. How?
Rotten Tomatoes: 15% Critic/75% Audience. I have to say, I'm not surprised by these numbers because audiences are fucking stupid.
IMDB: 6.7. Nope.
My Movie Rating: 2.5. I hated just about every minute of this piece of garbage.
Keanu Rating: 5/10. He's likable, I guess?
Up Next: It's the 2001 movie, Hardball, which was released just after 9/11. Never seen it but I can't imagine that bodes well.
No comments:
Post a Comment