Sweet November (2001)

“Ah, distinctly I remember,
I was watching Sweet November,
Which did logic so dismember
that my jaw dropped ‘pon the floor.
I saw Keanu, he kept “Whoa-ing,”
while the film did keep on blowing,
And my boredom kept on growing,
growing vast and deep and sure.
‘Spite the rare and radiant Theron,
yet still was I certain sure,
That I’d re-watch it nevermore.”
_____________________________________

Question: Why would comparatively big stars like Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron appear in a remake of a thirty year old Sandy Dennis movie? Now that I’ve actually seen the film, my answer is: I have no bleedin’ idea. I have a theory that involves a certain ebon, horned demigod, but that’s just a hunch.

Keanu is Nelson Moss. Nelson, although successful in worldly terms, is a man bereft of a soul, a guy not in touch with his emotional self, a fellow with no inner life. This, you might well propose, should make Keanu the perfect actor to play him. Unfortunately, Nelson’s supposed to change by the end of the movie. An interesting strategy might have been to substitute an entirely other actor to indicate this, sort of like how there were two Darrins on Bewitched. Sadly, this bold tactic remains unemployed.

We know Nelson’s soulless because:

1. He stops having hot sex when his alarm clock rings.
2. He talks to himself, calling himself the “top dog, big dog, bad dog” in order to get into the blinkered frame of mind that makes him who he is.
3. He has numerous TVs hooked up to his remote, so that they all go on when he hits the button. It’s established movie shorthand that anyone whose work is connected with television is soulless.
4. More than that, he’s an advertising executive. *Gasp*!!

His girlfriend/lover/whatever is Angelica. She’s played by Lauren Graham, the sexy young mom on TV’s rather wittier Gilmore Girls. Here she’s present to:

1. Provide us with an (almost) ass shot.
2. Spend a scene lounging around in matching black bra and panties.
3. Establish that Nelson’s a self-centered jerk.

Angela wants to talk. Nelson blows her off and heads to work. We quickly learn that Nelson is an up-n-coming savant in his field. Also, his job comes equipped with an unctuous jerk of a sidekick named Vince. However, not even Nelson can avoid dealing with the DMV, and he has to go in for a written test to renew his license. (Is that really the rule in California? In Illinois that only happens if you’ve let your license lapse.) We see him in line with normal people, and can tell he’s ‘comically’ uncomfortable with their proximity.

Arriving at the last minute for the test is Sara Deever. She’s dressed in a (mildly) kooky and (slightly) bohemian fashion and sports a pixie haircut to make her extra cute. Which, since she’s played by Charlize Theron, is sort of overkill. In any case, she’s all in all quite semi-wacky. First, she comes in carrying bags of groceries. Plus she continues to covertly munch on a hidden candy bar, despite the rule against eating during the test. Most tellingly, she’s introduced with comedy music. In other words, she’s that most terrifying of all things: The Irresistible Life Force Yin to Nelson’s Buttoned-Down Cipher Yang.

We know they’re meant to be together when they have a ‘meet cute.’ This involves her spilling her groceries at his feet, which is strangely played as being quite a zany occurrence. (A rather desultory example of the Meet Cute breed, but there you go.) Then — are you holding your sides? — she asks him to hand her a salami. This is played up a little, so I guess it’s supposed to be saucy or something because a salami is sort of phallic. Look, if you have a better explanation, let me know.

Nelson is shown having trouble with the test. Given that he’s played by Keanu Reeves, this is perhaps the most believable moment in the movie. He asks Sara for help, and she gets booted out for talking to him. She’s additionally upset that she won’t get to retake the test for a whole other month. Moreover, Nelson sits there stony faced – of course he does; he’s played by Keanu Reeves – while she takes all the blame.

After the test, Nelson finds Sara sitting on the hood of his Mercedes. Her vehicle, meanwhile, turns out to be a dilapidated van for her business providing dog grooming and daycare. (Remember earlier when Nelson kept referring to himself as a ‘dog’? Get it? It’s symbolism. Or…something.) She reminds him that he’s cost her her license for another month. He refers her to his secretary, who will cut Sara a check for her lost month’s income. See, he’s the kind of guy who thinks his Money will insulate him from Life’s Consequences.

Of course he’s incorrect. That night madcap Sara ‘hilariously’ appears at his ritzy apartment complex. Proving too much for Manny the Consternated Ethnic Comic Relief Concierge to handle, she appears on Nelson’s televiewer/intercom and asks that he come downstairs. When he does, she demands he drive her somewhere. He refuses, and she begins yelling things of a sexual nature about him to his neighbors as they walk by. One woman she invites to join them in a ménage de trios. “We have a tub full of fudge,” she adds. Oh, Sara, you scamp! Of course, all Nelson would have to do is walk back into the building and return to his apartment, but instead he gives in. IITS, you know.

So he follows her instructions, eventually pulling over on a deserted street. There she dons a black wig and sunglasses and steals his car keys so he won’t leave her there. Outside she jimmies open a door with a crowbar and enters a building. Alarms go off and she hurriedly returns carrying a large sack. She gives him back his keys and they drive off. The bag turns out, predictably, to contain two dogs about to have been used, we’re told, for medical experimentation. Now, however, the Evil March of Science has been thwarted. I mean, where is the lab going to get two more dogs?

He drives her home. She invites him to come up for cocoa. If he does, she says, she’ll leave him alone. He, quite sanely, refuses. So she says she’ll be back at his place tomorrow. Seriously, this is where you just can’t believe he wouldn’t call the cops. Instead, big surprise, he follows her up. Her apartment is predictably cutsie, and she spells out her plans for him as she makes the cocoa. She has seen the emptiness of his soul and offers him a month of her time. He’ll move in, take off of work, and she’ll devote a month entirely to helping him become the sort of person that Robin Williams plays in all those life-affirming movies.

I want people to know that I really strive to be fair to the films I review. So let me admit that one line here honestly made me laugh out loud. When Nelson inquires about how exactly she plans to help him, she replies that he lives in a box. “I could lift the lid, let some light in,” she explains. “Wow, that’s deep,” he responds. “I feel almost cured just hearing it.” Unfortunately, I fear this healthy and commonsensical contempt for vapidity will be quickly extinguished by an avalanche of syrupy mawkishness.

Nelson finally gets tired of being yanked around and tells her to leave him alone or he’ll call the cops. He leaves, and we see her looking genuinely shocked and shaken. Now, here’s my problem. As we’ll learn, this is her regular thing. She picks a guy, has him move in for a month, and ‘fixes’ him. Then he leaves and she goes out hunting for the next one. (Which sort of makes me wonder if the Susan Sarandon character in Bull Durham was based on the Sandy Dennis prototype for this role.)

Let’s admit right off the bat that many guys, most guys, if offered a month of (I have to assume) string-free sex with Charlize Theron, or her doppelganger, anyway, would jump at the chance. On the other hand, I think there’s a rule of life that most guys are familiar with, even if it’s seldom spoken of. By which I mean a lot of beautiful women are just flat out crazy. Scary, weird, freaky crazy. And Sara’s actions up to now would seem to nominate her for that category. So let me just stipulate that I find it hard to believe that not one guy, ever, has turned down Sara’s rather bizarre offer. Which is what her reaction to Nelson’s leaving would seem to suggest.

Cut to Nelson presenting his new ad concept to the owner of the Dr. Diggity hot dog brand. First he criticizes their old campaign, featuring a cartoon hot dog Dr., as “boring” and safe.” Instead, he seeks to change that image, so that their hot dogs are considered “dangerous.” The idea behind this new campaign would be to make men feel like savage pagans. Inspired to get in touch with their primal selves, Dr. Diggity hot dogs will be pushed as that which they’ll most crave to atavistically hunt down and cook up over a fire. In a rather severe example of Informed Attributes, everyone quickly falls under the spell of Nelson’s *cough, cough* boldly brilliant concept.

Oh, and yes, I got the irony that his idea is to use a hot dog brand to get people to tap into their inner beings, while he avoids doing so himself with Sara. Brilliant subtext, guys. Bravo.

Nelson’s sublimated attraction to Sara’s offer becomes starkly apparent as the visual aids for his presentation become ever more blatantly sexual in nature. (Imagine that, in an ad campaign!!) “We’re hot blooded,” he screams at last, “We need sex!!” Whereupon the spell is broken. The Dr. Diggity guy turns down the campaign concept, and Nelson, arrogant, soulless Nelson, insults him in a fit of rage. (!!) The guy, fed up, takes his business to another firm. Nelson’s boss, needless to say, fires him. This all goes on much longer than I’m describing it, by the way, so as to make sure we ‘get’ the dire straights that Nelson’s emotional self is in.

By the way, this whole presentation thing was meant to be funny, at least until Nelson’s flake-out scene. I could tell from the background music.

Also, and I know I’ve beat this drum before, but Hollywood’s fixation on sex as being the alpha and omega of the Human experience never ceases to depress me. So all of Nelson’s problems, problems that might otherwise be described as spiritual in nature, stem, according to this scene, from his repressed longing for sex. Well, that’s odd. Nelson is, after all, having sex, as we saw in the beginning of the movie. Ah, but you see, his sex with Angelica isn’t movie sex. That’s what every human soul on the planet is desperately crying out for. Movie sex!! You know, thousands of lit candles, physically perfect and passionate and desirable partners. Bathtubs, stuff swept off tables or desks and clothes rent in a rage of lust, that sort of thing. Sara, who had earlier critiqued him for his woeful lack of “kinky obsessions,” will quite apparently provide him the sexual healing his inner self craves.

Nelson returns to his apartment where, right on schedule, we see Angelica waiting to break up with him. I mean, she hasn’t done this yet – I’ve got the film on pause as I write this — but it’s the next cookie cutter step, isn’t it? See, between losing her and his job, he’s now confronted with the stark emptiness of his blah, blah, blah. Anyhoo, this also conveniently sets up the following:

• Free of work and girlfriend obligations, Nelson is now available to spend that entire month with Sara.
• The previously noted exposure of the emptiness of his life will motivate him to seek her out.
• It gets Angelica out of the way, so that we don’t think Sara’s a slut for sleeping with him. Despite the fact that she couldn’t possibly know she’s left him.

This is typical screenwriting, with everything tied up into a neat little package so that we understand every point without there being any messy ambiguity. Like there often is, for example, in real life. This extends to all these events occurring right at the end of October, so that his ‘therapy’ or whatever can neatly fall into the defined month of November.

Nelson is next shown alone in his apartment, bitter and drinking heavily. Then Manny the Ethnic Comic Relief concierge knocks on his door. He has a box for Nelson. Since it’s big and has air holes in it, we’re unsurprised to see that it contains one of the cute puppies Sara stole from the lab. This is ‘funny,’ since Nelson doesn’t like dogs. (More movie shorthand for his emotional barrenness, don’tcha know.) The box bears a colored sign that says “November” on it, the dog is sporting a party hat – imagine how likely it is a dog would sit in a box without knocking a party hat off its head – and wears around its neck a key to Sara’s apartment.

Enraged — I think; we’re talking Keanu Reeves here, after all — Nelson returns the box to Sara. She’s seen dancing/exercising by herself in a wacky, spastic fashion. This shows us how she’s a free spirit and unafraid to be herself and doesn’t care about social conventions and whatnot. Also, it’s ‘funny.’ Giving her back the dog (the other one’s been give away, in case you give a rat’s ass), Nelson orders her to stay out of his life. Of course, after saying this he stays around, so we get that he really blah, blah, blah.

Nelson had cut his hand while drunk earlier, giving her an excuse to minister to him. To make sure we get everything straight, they reiterate that he’s been fired, is currently sans girlfriend, and that it’s the first of November. In a good movie, all this would seem like kismet. Here it seems like blatantly clumsy scriptwriting and all the little gears and motors exposed. Which, surprise, is exactly what it is.

As usual, this article is running longer than I’d wished, so I’m going to try to speed things up. Sadly, the movie’s insanely long, and we’ve still a hour and a half left to go at this point. Which, to say the least, ain’t helping.

So Nelson allows himself to be talked into the arrangement while she continues to do wacky things like throw out his watch because she “doesn’t like them.” Then she removes his shirt to wash it (it smells like puppy pee, she says), an act which apparently was supposed to ratchet up the sexual tension. If so, it fails to do so, which is probably attributable to a singular lack of chemistry between the two leads.

So they kiss, and she closes her eyes and does that breathy thing so that we can tell that it wasn’t just a kiss. Because that would just be cheap. Then he tries to move things along and she tells him to slow down. This is so we know she’s not a slut. However, she means slow down as in ‘take your time and be gentle,’ not slow down as in ‘you might have to wait until we know each other for more than one day before I’ll screw you.’ This is so we know she’s not repressed or a prude, which is, after all, worse than being a slut.

He still wants to move too fast, though. This is because one hallmark of bad movies is that people are always dumber than they would be in real life. I mean, she’s obviously going to go to bed with him, so why would he act so stupidly. (IITS, maybe?) So she rebuffs him – a little — and he gets mad and walks out. They end up in the street, and it’s pouring rain out, so we know that they’ll argue but finish up the scene with a big, passionate kiss. But then the kiss doesn’t come. Instead, he simply turns and returns to her apartment. Wow. It’s amazing how you can get so hostile over a film’s slavish devotion to clichés, and then when a scene doesn’t go the way you think it will it often seems even lamer somehow. I guess hacks rely on tropes so heavily because they can’t do any better on their own.

Meanwhile, I was more than a bit annoyed when Nelson angrily complains about Sara “telling me what to do in the sack,” and she then abjectly apologizes. (!!) So, let’s see: One lead is a hopeless and utter jerk, and the other a wigged-out passive aggressive fruitcake one minute/doormat the next. Yeah, there’re two people that I’ll be coming to care for deeply. (What’s depressing is that Theron almost makes this glop believable. Good gravy, woman, you only have so many movies in you! Pick better ones!!)

Upstairs they have Movie Sex, prefaced with dumb lines. “Would you like to be my November?” she breathlessy asks. “Yes,” he whispers in an awed tone. Hey, is that a cinder in my eye or what? Yep, it’s a cinder. By the way, the Movie Sex is only implied, as they very quickly cut away here. Which is fine with me. Hey, if you want to see Reeves and Theron going at it, rent Devil’s Advocate.

Nelson wakes up, alone, and finds Sara’s left him a pair of Star Wars jockey shorts. Because it’s wacky. (It’s especially wacky to consider that she must presumably have a whole wardrobe full of goofy underwear in various men’s sizes.) Then he calls flunky Vince, who’s seen ineffectually trying to pick up a waitress in a coffee place. Because, you see, Vince is an Ineffectual Sidekick, so that’s the sort of thing we’d be expecting him to do. Nelson tells Vince to set up an interview for the pair of them with Edgar Price, an advertising bigwig referred to in an Obvious Fashion earlier in the movie.

Sara returns and orders him to stop looking for work, because that’s he used to be, not who he’s to become, yada yada. She kisses him, but he ‘comically’ is more concerned with why her TV doesn’t work. Oh, Nelson, will you never learn?! Sara’s TV, it turns out, has been hollowed out and is now a planter. (Wouldn’t the plants in it kind of give that away?) Because that’s the sort of thing a Free Spirit would do with a television.

Meanwhile, she gave away his old stylish clothes and got him some regular guy ones. Inevitably, she offers to make him an omelet made with “vegan butter” and a choice of either vegan sausage or vegan bacon, although I don’t think they’ve invented ‘vegan’ eggs yet, so I guess I’m missing the point.

Nelson gets into his new clothes. Meanwhile, Chaz, Sara’s downstairs neighbor, strolls nonchalantly into the apartment and pours himself some coffee. I think this is supposed to be, how’d ya guess, wacky. Because Sara’s lack of boundaries is so Free Spirited and all. Anyway, having had his scene he splits. Before he goes, though, he mentions “October.” The guy, not the month. Which got me wondering about how Sara arranges all this. She told Nelson she’d devote the entire month to him, and then he’d be out the door. Yet she was circling him during the last days of October, when, presumably, she was still finishing up with his predecessor. I guess I’m wondering how this transition period works. Which I probably shouldn’t even be thinking about, except that I’m sort of bored.

Nelson is predictably freaked out by this, because he’s an idiot and apparently hasn’t put together all the pieces. I mean, what did he think she meant when she kept calling him “November” and told him about the strict monthly limit on her attentions. (By the way, what happens in the short month of February? Does she just pick someone who’s slightly less screwed up?) This provides a second ‘he walks out, she chases him, they argue, he comes back,’ scene – which helps explain why this film’s so damn long – and allows for exposition to fill in that segment of the audience that hasn’t figured out her routine yet.

During the prior described sequence, comic music plays as she follows him around the street. (Again, I want to be fair, so let me note that the comedy music in this film is fairly unobtrusive for this sort of thing.) Nelson sees a bum wearing his old expensive clothes and chases him. Har har. Then Sara introduces *groan* A Cute Lil’ Kid by the name of Abner. Hmm, maybe Nelson will begin to bond with the lad and it’ll be a sign of his emotional growth. You know, like Tom Cruise and Jonathan Lipnicki in Jerry Maguire. Assuming we’re talking about a Jerry Maguire made in an alternate universe, where the movie sucked.

Jonathan Lipnicki’s lovable trait was that he precociously spit out oddball facts, like the weight of a human head. Abner’s rather less lovable trait – which is partly the film’s part, partly the fact that Abner isn’t played by Lipinski — is that he’s always doing wacky things in order to break a world’s record. (Actually, this is set up and then never referred to again. Typical.) Here he’s trying to stand on one leg for three hundred hours.

Anyhoo, we get some stuff where Nelson wonders about Sara’s Mysterious Reason for doing the man-a-month thing. If you don’t know the big plot revelation, you can probably guess, but anyway they’ll get to that eventually I suppose. In any case, Nelson will only give her a day, not a month, and she agrees. So they walk five identical white poodles — at least they’re not those yappy miniature ones – down by the beach. As Sara runs into the surf and cavorts with the dogs (yeah, they’ll smell great after that) Nelson can only watch from afar. See, his physical distance here mirrors him emotional distance. Get it? This is backed by a pop song, by the way, presumably setting up the inevitable MTV promotional music video.

Scene over and…yes!! The two are shown eating ice cream!! I’m telling you, in a romantic picture that’s like knocking over a fruit cart in an action movie chase scene. They prattle a bit – again, we’ve two hours to fill here – and end up back at the apartment. She ties a scarf around his eyes, which she says will help “sharpen your instincts.” Then she runs off and he has to try to find her. Just when I was wondering if they were trying to rip-off Nine ½ Weeks or Star Wars, the scene ended with him tripping and her running to him and laughing. Well. I can see why they kept that bit in the movie. It’s gold, baby.

More stuff happens, I’ll give you a break and skip over it. The upshot is that, after saying he’d only give her a day, he returns to his apartment, gets bored (I’m with ya, buddy) and returns to her. There. That ate up about another (almost) two minutes, and now we’ve only about an hour and ten minutes to go. Still, you can’t say this isn’t all absolutely essential stuff.

Next day we see them riding on a streetcar. Why? The movie is set in San Francisco, and it’s a law that in any movie set in San Francisco you’ve got to have a scene in a streetcar. Down by the pier – another San Francisco law – they see Abner. He’s still wearing a knit cap pulled down to his nose, one with eye holes, like Dumb Donald wore on the old Fat Albert show. So I guess that’s another ‘trait’ of his. Then he takes it off, so maybe not. (I now think he was only wearing it because they were afraid we wouldn’t remember who he was. Good bet.) He’s got a remote control model ship with him.

Then Vince calls. He got them an appointment Edgar Price on November 17^th. Obviously, since this is in the middle of November, it’ll be a source of conflict between Nelson and Sara later on. But hey, there’s plenty of time left for that and many other extraneous subplot. Also, Vince wants to know if Nelson’s found himself a new lady yet. Our Hero remains circumspect and hangs up.

There’s going to be a model boat race or something. The other kids make fun of both Abner and his rather puny and presumably homemade boat. Children can be so cruel, can’t they? Nelson gives him a rather perfunctory buck-up speech (“Just ignore them, Abner.” Write it down.) and the kid dejectedly decides to soldier on. Then Nelson approaches a grown guy with a model submarine, gives him a hundred bucks, and tells him to mumble mumble. His instructions turn out to be to use the model submarine to cripple the other boats so that Abner wins. Sure, this is cheating, but Abner deserved to win because his boat was much crappier than everyone else’s and he’s kind of pathetic.

(Again, to be fair, the underwater shots of the submarine model stalking the toy ships, which are filmed like a parody of Crimson Tide or something, were pretty funny. There we go, ten actual seconds of entertainment.)

More stuff. We get an incredibly uninteresting backstory for Nelson, for instance, so that we ‘understand’ why he is like he is. Believe me, you aren’t missing anything. In the end, Sara asks him to sing for her, and he refuses. “One day,” she replies. “One day, you’ll sing for me.” Hmm, I wonder if that’ll come up again later in the movie?

Next comes a bit so contrived that I was literally agog. We see Vince driving in his car with A Girl. He pulls over. Dialog establishes that he’s looking to get her a cappuccino. So he walks into a funky neighborhood ice cream parlor and, hey, lookee, just by coincidence, it’s where Nelson, Sara and Albert are having a treat. What are the odds? (Apparently San Francisco is as small as Paris. That’s the city in Kiss of the Dragon where prostitute/crime witness Bridget Fonda just happens to take up station in front of exact store that fugitive hero Jet Li is hiding in).

The scene goes about the way you’d expect, with Vince ‘representing’ the old Nelson and his past life. For instance, to prove what a jerk Vince is, they use about the most ploy imaginable: He can’t remember the name of the woman he’s right now out on a date with. Ha. Ha. Then he tries to order a cappuccino ‘fast,’ and is of course rebuffed by the counterperson who ain’t playing it that way. Helping to make Vince appear even more like a schmuck is that the couterperson is a Black Woman Who Displays Her Authenticity by Not Takin’ Any Guff from Some Lame White Dude. Right on, Sista!

Let’s see. Sara talks Nelson into taking her over to his parent’s old house, which although he’s vowed never to go there, he still conveniently owns. Obviously this whole situation is rife with Dangerously Repressed Emotions and stuff. Nelson looks shaken – as shaken as Keanu Reeves can look, anyway — and Sara goes to comfort him. The two end up silently dancing in the living room, although the soundtrack helpfully provides us in the audience with some music for this, so that our leads don’t look stupid.

Next, a romantic montage. Oddly, this isn’t backed by a pop tune featured on the inevitable soundtrack album. The lovers are shown walking on the beach on a blustery day, playing that blind man’s bluff thing again, buying apples from a street vender, walking down a leaf-strewn lane with Ernie the dog, and, finally, ending up in a bubble bath together. Gee, that’s original. Actually, the only thing that startles me is that there wasn’t a clip of Nelson winning Sara a big stuffed bear at a carnival.

The two exchange lover talk in the tub, as both actors make sure to keep any naughty bits well concealed under the protective layer of suds. Then it’s time for more comedy, so wacky neighbor Chaz walks right into the bathroom to talk with Sara. Nelson, of course, is somewhat taken aback by this, but we knows that’s because he’s so hopelessly buttoned down. I mean, who minds if a guy you barely know comes walking into the bathroom and conversing with you while you’re in the tub? What is this, Victorian England?

Chaz has invited them for diner and Sara makes Nelson go. Since Sara is a Kooky Free Spirit, and Nelson (supposedly) this big square, we are somewhat less than surprised when Chaz and his dinner companion turn out to be — three guesses — cross-dressing homosexuals. Of course, Nelson is somewhat disconcerted by this, because one doesn’t meet people like that every day when one lives in San Francisco. Then, in a bit that redefines the term ‘ham-fisted,’ Chaz, wig, sequined gown and all, turns out to be a prominent ad man at a rival agency. The idea being that, despite seeming to be all different and scary and stuff, cross-dressing homosexuals are, once you get to know them, EXACTLY LIKE YOU. In this case, literally. Same exact career and everything.

(Just to make everything even more ludicrous, Chaz turns out to be the exact guy who ended up with the Dr. Diggity account after they walked out on Nelson. Small world, isn’t it?)

With this mind-blowing revelation scarcely behind us, we finally get around to the film’s main plot device. Or, at least, start closing in on it. While Nelson and Chaz talk, Sara answers the phone. She’s irate to recognize her estranged sister’s voice, realizing that she’s been secretly calling Chaz behind her back. Sara rips into Chaz for violating her privacy, and we ‘get’ that something’s wrong from her exaggerated reaction. Chaz confirms to Nelson that there’s a Dark Secret here, but refuses to fill him in. That’s up to Sara.

Sara, who we suddenly learn is prone to migraines (see all the pieces coming together?), runs back upstairs and ransacks her medicine cabinet. Nelson shows up and asks what the deal with her sister is. Sara tries to distract him with sex. As drippy music plays, he points out the obvious, which is it’s a little lame for her to constantly demand that he be completely open while she keeps secrets. She eventually succeeds in putting him off, whereupon but finally notices that she’s not looking all that well. Normally, I’d castigate Nelson for being such an insensitive jerk, given that he’s only now noticing how shaky she looks. However, since she’s looked absolutely terrific in every scene up to now up to now, I really can’t lay that one at his feet.

Despite the fact that he’s cut her considerable slack, I think, she gets all bitchy the next day when he goes to have his appointment with Edgar Price. Boy, didn’t see that coming. He stalks out and we cut to Price, Vince and Nelson have lunch in a gray, sterile restaurant that we see represents everything that was wrong with Nelson’s old life. (Wow!) Not at all like the sort of funky but life affirming establishment Sara would take him to. Just to spell out the options Nelson faces IN GREAT BIG CAPITOL LETTERS, Price offers them a job, but only with the understanding that they will have no life outside of it. Which, if you think about it, I mean think about it really, really hard, is almost exactly the opposite sort of life that Sara advocates.

Edgar Price, by the way, is played by Frank Langella. A talented actor, Langella’s appearances over the last twenty years have almost systematically been in films ranging from lame to dreadful. A streak, by the way, that hardly comes to a close here. There was, for example, his supporting role in Body of Evidence. He also appeared in Cutthroat Island, in Eddie opposite his lover of the time, Whoopie Goldberg, and in the remake of And God Created Woman. Amazingly, perhaps the best film he’s been in over the last two decades might well be the He-Man movie Masters of the Universe, which was buoyed by Langella’s simply brilliant portrayal of Skeletor. (And no, I’m not being sarcastic. Langella was great.) Mr. Langella, please, sir, get another agent!

The luncheon meeting is intercut with Sara revealing her fears about Nelson to Chaz. Now that we know about Chaz, their friendship falls comfortably into that Beautiful Straight Woman/Gay Man Best Friend thing. Whew, because otherwise their relationship might not have fit neatly into some sort of established template.

Nelson is about to take the job when a Script Ex Machina arrives in the form of a clumsy waitress. One much too clumsy, by the way, to be believably working in such a swank establishment. Anyhoo, she spills a pitcher of water on the table. Price reacts to this by softy and calmly humiliating her, following which she runs off crying. Vince, being a proper little toady, obsequiously jumps in with his own mean japes. This after Price had casually insulted him as being worthless, too. He only wants Nelson, although he doesn’t much care if Vince is part of the package. Then Price scribbles his offer on a napkin. Needless to say, it turns out be spectacularly lucrative. Yet Nelson, a butterfly struggling to free himself from the cocoon of his past life, blows him off and splits.

So Sara is walking down the street, all bundled up and holding herself like she’s cold. (Because we’re now supposed to be getting that she’s sick). Nelson drives up along side of her in a taxi, holding out an orchid. Then a bunch of roses, followed by an even larger bouquet. Learning that he turned down the job, she kisses him passionately. This sequence, in a remarkably successful effort to make sure that not one single romantic movie cliché goes unutilized, is accompanied on the soundtrack by, that’s right, an Enya song. You know, it’s funny. If this were a parody, it’d be sublime, brilliant. But it’s not, so it’s instead downright moronic.

By the way, Nelson now likes dogs. Because, you know, he’s a better person.

Uh, more stuff I won’t much bore you with. Lucky you. This involves Sara planning a vegan Thanksgiving dinner – eee-yuck! – while Nelson tries to get her to open up about her family. Then Nelson goes outside and has a vomit-inducing little heartwarming scene with Abner.

Nelson runs back upstairs and asks Sara — who we, godlike, know is sicker than she’s letting on – to marry him. She, of course, turns him down and runs into the bedroom, where he finds her prostrate on the floor. Breaking into her medicine cabinet, he finds it lined with dozens of pill bottles. So much so that it’s literally comical. How could he possibly have been living with her as she was downing like thirty prescriptions and never caught on? Anyway, here’s the Big Revelation: She’s dying. I hope you were sitting down when you read that shocking, out-of-the-blue plot twist.

Now that he knows, of course, she’s suddenly in such bad shape that she needs to be hospitalized. Luckily Chaz is on hand to do the expositional heavy grunting, although what we need to know past “She’s sick and soon to die,” is beyond me. Following this, Nelson heads back to the hospital. Sara’s awake, and her appearance confirms that she’s afflicted with Ali McGraw disease, the ailment that makes you look increasingly beautiful the closer you are to death. It’s pretty common in these things.

Despite (or due to) being On Death’s Door, Sara refuses to stay in the hospital. See, the whole point is that she wants to live on her own terms. So she asks Nelson to take her home. She pulls out her oxygen feed and catheters and stuff, and I guess she’s not hooked up to any machines because nothing pings after she does so. In a scene not much short of ridiculous, he scoops her up in her hospital gown and carries her into the elevator, downstairs, and out of the hospital. (If they’re trying to call to mind the end of An Officer and a Gentleman, they’ve succeeded in being both sick and hilarious.) Luckily, no one says boo as he does this.

Cut back to the apartment. Chaz and his boyfriend take over – presumably they’ve been helping to care for her all this time — and Sara sends Nelson away, since she can’t bear him seeing her like this. As he leaves, something I feared was going to be absolutely disgusting happens. Which is that they have Abner walk into the apartment. I was afraid they were going to exploit the whole ‘Abner learns that Sara’s dying’ thing, but thank goodness they don’t.

Instead, he’s here to bring Nelson to “Father Sunday.” This, it turns out, is a bring-your-father to school sort of thing. (Why on a Sunday?!) Abner doesn’t know his father, so Nelson had earlier agreed to go with him. Abner gives a typically mawkish speech about Our Hero, and the whole scene lasts like twenty-five seconds, so I don’t know what the point is. Then Nelson walks Abner back home. Hopefully that’ll be the last we see of the kid, because I’ll puke if they start wringing the kid out for more pathos.

Nelson heads off to think about things, we see him thinking of little clips of Sara from earlier in the movie while that Enya song plays again. Then more stuff. Sara and Chaz have a scene where he comforts her and tells her she should let Nelson be with her. She refuses to put him through it, etc. Been there, done that. Then it’s the big Thanksgiving dinner. (By the way, there’s a big golden turkey on the table, and don’t try to tell me it’s a ‘vegan’ one.) It’s Sara, Chaz and his beau, Abner and a couple of hippies. Which, now that I think about, is about as traditional a San Francisco Thanksgiving as you’re likely to see.

In one of the weirder ass bits I’ve seen lately, Nelson come in through the fire escape window, wearing a Santa cap (!) and shouting “Merry Christmas.” He also hauls in a big red sack of gifts. From Sara’s expression I can tell that she’s thinking the exact same thing I am: I hope he’s got a barf bag in there.

The others take this as their cue to leave, although, unfortunately, I was too masochistic to follow their lead. This scene proves even more painful than the rest of the movie, probably because of the appalling mixture of cuteness and poignancy they’re vainly striving to achieve. Plus, this might be Keanu’s worst acting in the movie, which is saying something.

Nelson brings her twelve gifts, all accompanied by grotesquely cutesy little dialog bits: A salami, like the one he handed her when they met. A clown wig. A novelty whip. A giant perfume sprayer. A comical book about transvestites. A bubble machine (?). And so on. The second to last gift proves to be a dishwashing machine (!!). Admittedly, it’s a compact one, but are we seriously supposed to believe that this was carried up a fire escape with all that other stuff and then fit through a window? He must have borrowed that bag from Felix the Cat.

Anyway, they go through each and every frickin’ present. I’m not kidding, I was literally horrified watching this scene, which is easily the most pain-inducting part of the film. I can only imagine the pained writhing of any guy who was stuck seeing this in a theater because his girlfriend dragged him along. He must have been praying for a bullet the entire time.

Then it’s time for the twelfth gift and they do a circle wipe taking us to an old fashioned nightclub. Are you ready for a beautiful four-hanky weeping jag, ladies? Well, remember when Nelson told her he’d never sing for her? Well, he does! In a white tuxedo jacket and everything!! And let me state for the record: Keanu Reeves sings rather worse than he acts.

Back at the apartment, Sara finds the walls festooned with wall calendars turned to November. I really had no idea what the hell that could possibly mean, but luckily Nelson clues us in. “Every month is November, Sara,” he says. Gee, now I get it. There’s more, but it’s just…words fail me. Anyhoo, we see them kiss, and then see them have sex, because, hey, if we don’t know that they can still have sex then where’s the beauty in all of this?

However, when he wakes up the next morning she’s heading out of the apartment, telling him to pack up and leave. He runs after her. (Please, could she just go ahead and die now? Right now? Please?) He catches her, and they have the whole, “I want you to leave – I won’t leave you!!” discussion all over again. She wins, eventually, telling her that she wants him to always remember her as she was, yada yada, and that she’ll be going back to her family for the end and they’ll take care of her and she ties her scarf around his eyes like before and begins to walk away and whatever JUST END THIS DAMN MOVIE ALREADY!!!

When Nelson uncovers his eyes, Sara is gone. Unfortunately, when I uncover my eyes, he’s still there. But they just show him walking around a little and then we finally go to credits. And not a month too soon.
Oh-My-Sides Moments:

• Nelson and Vince talk to each other constantly on their cell phones as they head for work. Even when they’re riding up to their office in separate elevators. Then they both arrive at the same time and walk along side each other, still talking on their phones, before realizing the other’s there!! Comedy!!
• Also, Vince gets no respect. Running gag!
• Nelson’s in the DMV line, and right in front of him is a woman with a crying baby!! Comedy!!
• Who will ever forget the scene with Nelson talking to a hot dog on a fork as he tries to come up with a killer slogan for its manufacturer? By the way, who the hell eats a hot dog that’s been micro waved?! Blechh!!

Pluck At Our Heartstring Moments:

• Nelson is seen watching a TV commercial featuring a happy young boy and his Mom. Peering into his soul, godlike, we see his secret pain.
• Having lost his lover and his job, Nelson glances over at his industry awards. Earlier, they seemed so important. Now, however, they are meaningless, for they can’t assuage the emptiness in his soul. In a rage he smashes them, and they shatter like the hollow reality of his life. (Wow!)

Huh? Moments:

• How come Nelson was having trouble with the driver’s license test when Sara was in the room – with the result that she got tossed out – but then managed, presumably, to pass it without any help?
• Why did Sara carry her groceries with her to the DMV test when her van was right outside in the parking lot? Oh, yeah, the meet cute thing. Never mind.
• How did she just happen to end up sitting on Nelson’s car? Admittedly, there weren’t that many luxury cars there, but there had to be more than one.
• Sara appears at Nelson’s apartment and demands a ride. Oddly, Nelson doesn’t even think of just having Manny the concierge order her a taxi.

THINGS I LEARNED (â„¢, Andrew Borntreger):

• Homosexual lovers, when they’re in a catty mood, call each other ‘bitch.’ Oh, wait. Now that I think about it, I already knew that from every other movie or TV show that featured homosexual characters. Never mind. Oh, but did you know they also say, “Don’t even go there!”?? Did you?
• You can tell people are good, salt of the Earth types when you see them putting up a Che Guevara poster.

The Critics Rave