Metascore
27 out of 100

Generally unfavorable - based on 30 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 30
  2. Negative: 18 out of 30
  1. Neither a masterpiece nor a remake of one, but its wistfulness is infectious, and its melancholy mood lingers for days.
  2. Reviewed by: Loren King
    63
    Nice to look at but too calculated and clichéd to resonate beyond its surface slickness.
  3. Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    63
    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.
  4. Anyone in the market for a bittersweet romantic comedy could do worse.
  5. 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.
  6. 50
    The sort of movie that seems to exist for no good reason except to keep the studio's pipeline filled with filmed product.
  7. 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.
  8. Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    50
    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.
  9. 42
    It's classic movie manipulation gone amok.
  10. 40
    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.
  11. Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    40
    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.
  12. 40
    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.
  13. If Sweet November were a puppy, it would have rabies.
  14. 38
    November is when we eat turkey, and Sweet November is pretty much a fat, juicy gobbler passed off as Valentine's Day date bait.
  15. 30
    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.
  16. 30
    This whimsical weeper gets off to an awkward start and never finds its footing.
  17. Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    30
    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.
  18. A film that means to be seductive but merely progresses from the contrived to the manipulative.
  19. 25
    Passes off pathological behavior as romantic bliss. It's about two sick and twisted people playing mind games and calling it love.
  20. 25
    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.
  21. A hellacious stew of romance and tragedy that gives the words "screwball" and "pathos" a bad name.
  22. A very low grade romantic drama indeed, a love story with all the life and death intensity of a heat rash.
  23. 20
    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.
  24. 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.
  25. 20
    Beware all male viewers who enter here, you are in chick-movie hell.
  26. Reviewed by: Staff (Not credited)
    20
    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.
  27. 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."
  28. A front-end collision of a romance.
  29. 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.
  30. Shamelessly manipulative in a crude, bullying way.
User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 48 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 28 out of 34
  2. Negative: 3 out of 34
  1. kkk
    10
    The movie was ok, not something I would admire nor would recommend someone to watch.well, I felt Reeves overacted in few sections though he is a good actor.I could not digest series of events that followed since their first encounter. It was totally Illogical. Yes,it had emotions,but movie lacked balance of emotions and drama.Well, Nelson Moss (Keanu Reeves) should have called the police when Sara Deever (Charlize Theron) was irritating him. Full Review »
  2. IvanN
    9
    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. Full Review »
  3. ManishS
    10
    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. Full Review »