Grade: C+

Verdict: A passable, soggy valentine, though only one half of the loving couple generates sparks.

Details: Starring Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron. Rated PG-13 for sexual content and profanity. Two hours.

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Review: There's a reason Keanu Reeves was good playing a dangerous, raging redneck in "The Gift." It's those dead black eyes, as flat and unreflective as matte paint. Their lack of human spark made him memorably scary. And they're what make him wrong for "Sweet November."

In this well-made if sappy romantic-comedy-weepy, a remake of the 1968 flick, he plays Nelson Moss. A hotshot ad exec in San Francisco, Nelson has all the movieland traits of a workaholic in need of spiritual rehab: He watches 10 TVs at once, his cellphone never stops ringing and the walls of his muy chic apartment are painted a soulless gray. He's "American Psycho's" Patrick Bateman without the chainsaw.

Enter Sara Deever (Charlize Theron), meet-cute style: When she drops her groceries all over the floor of the DMV's license renewal office, Nelson literally gives her the salami. She reciprocates by offering to give him a life, inviting him to loosen up and live with her for the month of November. "If you're brave enough to commit, I will devote myself entirely to you," she says. It's her personal mission; she's a one-woman rescue committee who chooses one man each month for a 30-day sentimental education.

See, Sara's one of those life-force waifs who's adorable on-screen but who'd be pretty darn unbearable in real life. To Theron's credit, she makes the character somebody you actually might like to meet. At least for a minute or two. She sparkles, she charms, and when the plot U-turns toward melodrama, she's believably vulnerable, even as the movie itself grows more and more unbelievable.

Unfortunately, Theron can't create romantic chemistry on her own, and it's pretty much a unilateral struggle. She's as alive on-screen as Reeves is inert. In "The Matrix," you could pretend his cool blankness was a kind of Zen. That doesn't work in a movie about romance. At one point, flummoxed by the tofu-and-patchouli flavor of Sara's funky neighborhood, he cries out, "Where am I?" You don't know whether to laugh at the character, or pity Reeves; the actor seems as out of place as Nelson.

The supporting cast includes Jason Isaacs, the hissable baddy from "The Patriot," as Sara's gay neighbor. For the most part, the movie presents him as just an average guy-next-door, except for the requisite craggy-man-in-drag scene, used for cheap laughs. Frank Langella turns in a sharp cameo as a satanic ad executive, while "Ally McBeal's" Greg Germann, as Nelson's fast-talking, unscrupulous partner, proves he needs to try something new. (He gives the same performance in "Down to Earth.")

Director Pat O'Connor ("Circle of Friends") does what he can to massage the more ham-fisted scenes.

But he can't make us swallow one detail: that Nelson owns his family's old house, and lets it sit empty. If you know anything about the housing crunch in the Bay area, and the incredibly high price of real estate in that dot-com-inflated region, then you really know this is a Hollywood fantasy.

— Steve Murray, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution