Another dying love

SWEET November is yet another Love Story-type spin-off, this time with Charlize Theron as the girl with an inoperable illness who selflessly devotes her last months to making a man happy and a more rounded person. He is Keanu Reeves, a younger, hipper, angrier edition of fatherly Richard Gere, who suffered, survived and got glamorously greyer in a similar lachrymose situation in Autumn in New York.

Reeves, an adman with low ethics and high self-esteem, accepts the offer of Theron's radical angel to cohabit with her for a month, and she will make him a better integrated individual than the capitalist wannabe he is now. Her programme of soul reform largely means surrendering his cell-phone for the duration of her days on earth, walking barefoot on the beach so that sand between the toes will put him in touch with his feelings, and fostering an orphaned child.

As usual in such boy-and-girl romances whose hetero appeal might not be sufficiently all-inclusive for the gender varieties in today's movie audiences, there's a sweet-tempered transvestite (Jason Isaacs) on tap to act as friend and counsellor to both lovers. (As always, wisdom lies in the middle.) The decision to make November the month of choice for stars who die is unfortunate. It looks picturesque; but it is also the Thanksgiving season associated with turkeys.

Like this one.

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