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9
17
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45
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61
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43
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29
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23
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80
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34
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60
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32
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27
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41
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39
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46
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73
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78
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55
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66
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69
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58
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47
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66
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34
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33
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54
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67
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51
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42
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28
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63
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86
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35
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48
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30
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53
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24
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83
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33
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45
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55
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47
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96
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35
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28
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88
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71
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67
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28
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73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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96
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56
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72
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39
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78
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66
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xx
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72
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73
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76
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86
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13
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70
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26
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57
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45
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xx
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75
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85
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Endgame
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62
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74
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49
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80
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28
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50
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25
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50
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58
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72
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89
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52
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64
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81
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xx
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63
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73
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xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
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94
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29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
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83
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61
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42
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70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
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xx
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41
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41
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66
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34
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80
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83
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xx
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59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
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48
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73
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66
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47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
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Paradise
68
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68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
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76
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69
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79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
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77
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xx
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46
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39
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89
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50
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55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
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Thirst
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61
Trucker
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83
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66
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70
Visual Acoustics
55
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67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Sweet November

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 44 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by:
Kurt Voelker (also story)
Paul Yurick (story)
Herman Raucher (1968 screenplay)
Directed by: Pat O'Connor
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 16, 2001
DVD: July 24, 2001
Running Time: 120 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sexual content and language
Starring Keanu Reeves, Charlize Theron, Jason Isaacs, Greg Germann, Lauren Graham, and Michael Rosenbaum
Nelson (Reeves) and Sara (Theron) have nothing in common except an hour spent in DMV hell. Intrigued by each other, but not quite ready to commit, they settle on a rather unconventional courtship: a one-month trial, after which they'll go their separate ways. No expectations. No pressure. No strings attached. What neither of them counts on is falling in love. (Warner Brothers)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Circle of Friends Inventing the Abbotts
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Neither a masterpiece nor a remake of one, but its wistfulness is infectious, and its melancholy mood lingers for days.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
It's a small film, and a far from perfect one, but it allows her (Theron) to extend her range as no previous role has done.
Chicago Tribune Loren King
Nice to look at but too calculated and clichéd to resonate beyond its surface slickness.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Anyone in the market for a bittersweet romantic comedy could do worse.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
He's (Reeves) not as good as he was playing a menacing Georgia wife-beater in The Gift, but he's an awfully convincing jerk.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
If the movie works on its own insipid level, it's because of high-gear star power -- 50 times the captivator Dennis ever was, Theron is terrific at creating adorable intimacy with little help from the script or director and exudes more guileless élan than any of the film's many puppies.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Does neither of its leads any favors. But they fill their roles admirably, and then some. Time and again, in a movie that repeatedly threatens mawkishness, you can sense them gently steering away just in the nick of time.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
The sort of movie that seems to exist for no good reason except to keep the studio's pipeline filled with filmed product.
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The sweetest thing about Sweet November (a remake of the 1968 movie) is the on-screen magic between Charlize Theron and Keanu Reeves. But that's pretty much where the magic ends.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Does neither of its leads any favors. But they fill their roles admirably, and then some. Time and again, in a movie that repeatedly threatens mawkishness, you can sense them gently steering away just in the nick of time.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
It's all corny and contrived and usually sensitive. The filmmakers even dare to show the effects of illness--a subject frequently glamorized to the point of being insulting--in a love scene of rare honesty.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
A contrived but entirely workable premise is given a well-tooled treatment in Sweet November, a femme-slanted doomed romance with a heavily calculated feel to it.
Read Full Review >USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
November is when we eat turkey, and Sweet November is pretty much a fat, juicy gobbler passed off as Valentine's Day date bait.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
If Sweet November were a puppy, it would have rabies.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
This is one of those movies in which there are only two types of people: officious yuppie pricks, and the beautiful folks who stop and smell the daisies. What keeps it (barely) from being completely intolerable is Keanu Reeves' hilariously awful lead performance.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
This whimsical weeper gets off to an awkward start and never finds its footing.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
A film that means to be seductive but merely progresses from the contrived to the manipulative.
Read Full Review >Film.com Robert Horton
Charlize Theron has charm and skill, but no actress could survive this role, which has the gravity and verisimilitude of a sketch from a late-sixties Nancy Sinatra TV special.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Curtis Morgan
The enigma of Reeves, sort of a human black hole on screen, works well in "The Matrix" but it drains the life from weepy romance.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Passes off pathological behavior as romantic bliss. It's about two sick and twisted people playing mind games and calling it love.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
A hellacious stew of romance and tragedy that gives the words "screwball" and "pathos" a bad name.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
A very low grade romantic drama indeed, a love story with all the life and death intensity of a heat rash.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Get out your handkerchiefs. No, scratch that -- get out a pair of windshield wipers and staple them to your brow. Perhaps they'll obscure the screen.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
This feeble remake offers little more than two pretty and willing leads who nonetheless can't hide their embarrassment over being set up as distractions to hide the film's thorough lack of coherence and appeal.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
The film's last half-hour -- or do I mean its final two weeks? -- is meant to keep the audience sniffling and sobbing uncontrollably, but the only thing likely to elicit tears is the sight of Mr. Reeves dressed in a white dinner jacket crooning "Time After Time."
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Beware all male viewers who enter here, you are in chick-movie hell.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Staff (Not credited)
It could be said that Reeves is one of the great manifestations of the mysteriousness of stardom. He gives the worst performance in Sweet November, and he's the best thing about it.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Shamelessly manipulative in a crude, bullying way.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Sara is supposed to be an adorable screwball with a fatal disease. Ms. Theron certainly gets the adorable right. With a comic style that's close to unerring, she not only deserves better than this junk but the very best.
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 44 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Ivan N gave it a9:
After looking through "professional" critic reviews, I finally understood why I like Chicago Tribune so much over other periodicals. The thing is that those guys at CT do have hearts and do understand that there is more to life than what you expect in an average, credit-backed, bubble-life.
Manish S gave it a10:
This is one of the best movie ever written and acted. You may not like it but it is the best movie for any "Human" being. Before anything else we are human beings. so being Human is being"with " love. always giving always caring always forgiving, No demanding etc etc. rest is the movie. frankly speaking I did not like the last few minutes. I think director spoiled it due to time limitation....Love infact does not know time. etc etc.....anyway take care and love you.
Gloria C. gave it a5:
It was a very drama movie i love it alot.
Madison S. gave it a 10:
It's reality. It's not some fairy tale where everyone falls in love and lives happily ever after.
Leah W. gave it a 10:
One of the best films i have ever seen.. well romance film neway! extremely moving.. made me cry 10/10 without a doubt.
Buffy fan gave it a 10:
This is one of the best drama movies that I have ever seen. Keanua Reeves is magnificent in this movie I actually cried when I watched this it difently is a classic.
Niall M. gave it a 9:
I really enjoyed this film, it is one of the best iv seen in the past while. charlize and keanu did a great job, the chemistry between them i thought was electric. im not a person that would cry at a film but this film had me very close, it certainly caused a lump in my throat. up to the last quarter of this film had me feeling heart warmed and feeling that this is was happiness is (especially that scene which keanu realised this is all he ever wanted), and then the last quarter moved me tremendiously. good film.
