That's the ticket to Sweet November , director Pat O'Connor's remake of a 1968 romance that starred a perky Sandy Dennis and an uptight Anthony Newley. It's the Protestant work ethic reprogrammed for the Information Age, and Sweet November nails its smelly carcass with deftness and humor.
Reeves is better as a jerk.
Theron is always the shining star of Sweet November with her radiant features, her openness and vulnerability, her understated seductiveness. She has turned her TV into a planter. Reeves, by contrast, dwells in a rehabbed loft, hung with meaningless modern abstractions, where a half-dozen cable channels flicker simultaneously, and surfing the Net on the laptop brings momentary diversion but no satisfaction. Even with its weepy turn rooted in the hoariest customs of melodrama, Sweet November is probably the best date movie in a season of awful romantic farces. It also touches on social attitudes that resonate more deeply than any Hallmark Valentine's Day card.