February 16, 2001 | If you’re going to make a romantic comedy about a sprightly nonconformist who sets her sights on an uptight fellow in desperate need of loosening up, keep this in mind: In movies, as in life, there’s a fine line between free-spirited kookiness and mad-stalker craziness. Charlize Theron smudges that line repeatedly during the first hour or so of Sweet November. After that, she never fully recovers, and neither does the film.

Theron plays Sara Deever, a strenuously outrageous young San Franciscan who boldly announces her eccentricity by wearing Olive Oyl boots and thrift-shop apparel. Chief among her other eccentricities is her singular approach to monogamy: For reasons she refuses to reveal, but which any seasoned moviegoer can readily guess, she opens her apartment – and, more important, her bedroom – to a new man each month. Each lucky guy gets 30 days of wild romance and spiritual uplift. At the end of the month, though, it’s time to say good-bye. No regrets, no commitments, no strings attached.

Keanu Reeves plays Nelson Moss, an advertising executive who is – are you ready for this? are you sitting down? – a cold-blooded, money-obsessed workaholic. (There must be ad executives out there, somewhere, who are warm and cuddly snuggle-bunnies, but they never manage to pop up in the movies.) After he and Sara “meet cute” during a DMV test, she decides to make Nelson her Mr. November. Nelson, you’ll be astonished to hear, is slow to accept the honor. Call him silly, but he’s just a tiny bit reluctant to get close to a woman who appears uninvited in the lobby of his apartment building, and playfully informs his neighbors that he’s a flasher. For Sara, such impish behavior is part of the loosening up process. But for Nelson – who, it should be noted, isn’t a flasher -- it’s almost enough for him to seek a restraining order.

Even so, Nelson eventually changes his mind. Or, to be more accurate, he has a change imposed upon him, thanks to the shameless machinations of director Pat O’Connor (Circle of Friends) and first-time screenwriter Kurt Voelker. First, the stressed-for-success exec gets fired from his lucrative job when he goes berserk and insults a client while proposing a ludicrously sexy ad campaign for hot dogs. Then, his under-appreciated girlfriend takes a hike. Left alone in a gadget-filled, ultra-expensive apartment that would greatly please the warped protagonist of American Psycho, he decides to take a month-long vacation from responsibility, and moves in with Sara.
 
If all of this sounds more than slightly familiar, you’re either older than you want to admit, or you spend entirely too much time watching obscure movies on cable TV. Sweet November is a remake of a 1968 romantic comedy written by Herman Raucher (Summer of ‘42), starring Sandy Dennis as the indefatigable free spirit and Anthony Newley as her roommate of the month.

The original wasn’t a great movie by any standards, so the makers of the remake certainly can’t be accused of vandalism. (If you’re going to remake movies, why not remake near-misses and total fizzles instead of beloved classics?) But at least the ’68 version moved with more a lilt to its step, and didn’t strain so obviously for faux poignancy at the end. More important, Sandy Dennis never came across as creepy as Charlize Theron does here. (Weepy, yes; creepy, no.)

On the plus side, Keanu Reeves gives a nicely understated performance as the button-down workaholic who needs spiritual reviving and sexual healing. Yes, I know: It’s fashionable to mock Reeves for his frequent lurches into surfer-dude stupor. (I still giggle remember his defining moment in The Matrix, when he gasped: “Whoa! I know kung-fu!”) But here, as in last year’s The Replacements, he proves to be attractive and engaging as a traditional romantic comedy lead. In fact, he’s so appealing, you can’t help wanting to shout when Nelson nears Sara’s apartment: “Turn around! Run! Save yourself!”

But, of course, he doesn’t run way. He sticks around to fall in love, to become a better person – and to fully appreciate Sara’s Potrero Hill stomping grounds as the most sweetly funky spot this side of Notting Hill (the movie, not necessarily the London neighborhood.) In return, he encourages his elusive butterfly to stop flapping her wings so insistently. And the more Sara slows down, the less grating and more endearing Theron becomes. But not quickly enough.