After the death of her husband (James Le Gros) during a robbery, a traumatized photographer (Courteney Cox) investigates what's behind mysterious clues and events that may help her to find the person who killer her partner and what happened on the day he was killed.The viewer's involvement with this story? It goes well for a while then it gets repetitive, doesn't move much, lacks in suspense and lacks in originality. Although the few characters aren't so interesting, the plot seemed to be, intriguing and complex until the script makes some wrong and strange turns, alternating facts and confusing the audience by playing and replaying scenes but changing some characteristics. Only when the ending comes you understand this on/off effect; but by that time it dragged a lot, presented many facts and couldn't keep up with any, most of the time thrown at us with no purpose. "November" uses of chapters related with death stages (anger, denial, acceptance, etc.) each time a change is introduced. I can't deny I saw it and it made me very angry when I realized the copy this movie was, borrowing elements from "Memento" and "The Sixth Sense". Painfully boring, and that's a fact you'll have to accept. 4/10

OK i'm really baffled by all the high ratings. "Raging Bull", that was a good movie, "Ran" that was a good movie, if you want to compare it to other low budget indies try "Primer", that was a good movie (also won sundance and was made for $8000), "November" is the funniest movie i've seen since David Lynch's adaptation of "Dune". Here's why: First, the entire movie was shot in horrible studio build ups of really uncreative and poorly crafted stages. If there was one thing that was worse than this it was the lighting. I think they borrowed it from the set of "Full House". Aesthetically the movie was horrible and looked like a cheap television pilot. The actual film minus the credits has a runtime of about 70 minutes and that includes about 7 or 8 minutes of repeat footage. The premise was unoriginal and has been done many times before (see some of the other reviews for examples). The dialog was worse than the premise and the acting followed closely behind. But you can't really blame Courtney Cox because clearly she had to have thought she was still on the set of "Friends". She wandered around most of the time looking really confused probably because she couldn't figure out why David Schwimmer looked so much like James LeGros. But if you really want to be entertained watch the movie and then read some of the good reviews people have written here...."Courteney Cox is nothing short of excellent here"..."especially when sharing a scene with Cox, who acts circles around his one dimensional performance"...."The movie was flawless, intelligent, artsy etc.. I give it a 10!! I think it was a masterpiece!"....omg my side hurts.

I saw November and it's a good movie, not great, but good. SPOILERS COMING IMMEDIATELY! Right in the beginning of the movie, during the opening credits, I saw Courtney's character dead on the floor and so I was tipped off right away that this movie will not end well. I didn't realize at the time the movie would always be ending and never beginning. The entire movie, all three acts of the same scene, is Courtney's character coming to terms with her death and of course it would never take that long. She dies in a matter of a few moments and that's all the time her mind is allowed to work through her death. I noticed the dreamlike quality the director used to tell the story is being confused with or mistaken for what the character's thought processes might be. The use of clues, symbols, and metaphors is how we dream or tell stories, it's not how we think. We can only guess what we may think about during a shocking and dramatic death, but I don't think it will be done in dream like thinking. I think if I got shot in the stomach, I'd be thinking holy s#*t, I'm fooking dieing and then the blood will run out and I'll get weak and then I will accept the coming darkness or hopefully the bright light will start shining and I'll hear my late mother's voice or see some Saint. Many of us know about the steps to dieing (Ross), many of us have seen a family member with cancer go through the steps. Courtney's character has to go through the steps at warp speed. The rest is all "movie business" and telling a story. All the business of clues and metaphors is for us, the movie goer, not for the character. This is not the stuff that Courtney is thinking about how could it be? Courtney is not dreaming, she's dieing. That's why so many people don't like the movie. I liked the movie, not a lot, but enough to be pleased I saw it. Not because I think I just saw what someone thinks while dieing. I didn't see that. I saw a movie tell a story the way we dream and it's interesting to be reminded the way we dream is so universal.

Confusing? Yes. Fractured story line? Yup. Could I recommend it to family members? Certainly not. The reason for the confusing narrative is because the director divides the film into quarters (instead of the traditional three act format). Without telling us in advance, he also "tints" each quarter segment with colors. The 'Denial' quarter is filmed in a blue tint, another quarter in sepia, another in 'white light', and so on. Subliminally, all this confuses the viewer, on a script which also filled with flash-backs and flash-forwards. Too much fractionalization to follow coherently for the average Joe.November has a cool and artful look. But artful looks can't carry a storyline if the majority of viewers are puzzled.If your a film student however, or if you have a Panasonic DVX-100 and want to make your own movies, this film is a goldmine. Film students: go to the special features menu and click on where director Harrison converses with his DP about how they made the film.He describes in the greatest detail how the film was made. All technical aspects of recording on mini-DV, transfer to non-linear AVID, sound recording imported from a 48k DAT at 29.97 is all discussed; location work, practical lighting, shooting without a crew, editing special FX, etc. Transfer to digi-beta and filmout steps all expertly explained.Harrison also discusses INDIGENT Films, the NYC studio that bankrolled this film. Indigent produces high quality - low budget movies and distributes them to markets worldwide.So in conclusion, I am purchasing a copy of November because it is an incredible training tool for the straight-to-video filmmaker. But also because I want to support Harrison and Indigent Films. Harrison will do better on his next film. And praise must be given to Indigent for producing these otherwise marvelous low budget features.In the DVD's director's commentary Harrison calls this a "no budget" movie. Then he tells us it was made for $500,000. Hardly a no budget film. In Texas, we would have shot this film for one fifth that price.But in all fairness, I really liked this film and it's arty, cranked up editing style. I'm looking forward to following Harrison's work and will definitely be tracking anything coming out of Indigent's movie inventory. Keep an eye on these folks. They're going places.Gary T filmmaker/Texas