28 Days

Eleven years after this movie hit the screen, I just viewed it. After seeing pages of reviews, no one will read this, but I will add my 2 cents anyway. I dislike drug rehabilitation movies, abuse movies, and similar themes, but this one captured my interest during each scene. I watched it in the morning while finishing last night's left-over gin that was diluted with water from melted ice from the previous night. I saw myself.

The reason I dislike rehabilitation movies is that I feel like I'm watching someone else's problems, and I don't like entertainment based on someone else's pain. For those who like this type of entertainment, it is excellent. For those who need a life-changing event, it may serve that purpose too.

28 DAYS / (2000) ***

"28 Days" is one of the most accurate movies about alcoholism and drug addiction I can remember. The film does not glamorize or poke fun at its thematic content, but instead shimmers in truth depicting the problems in which a nowhere life can lead. Why would anyone want to see a movie about someone spending time in rehab, regardless of how well crafted it is? Because "28 Days" is an interesting, sometimes funny, and involving tale with empathetic, down to earth characters. Do not let this production pass by you without a watch.

The film's main character is named Gwen Cummings and is played by the talented Sandra Bullock. She lives a wild, crazy life with her boyfriend, Jasper (Dominic West). Gwen is an alcoholic and a drug addict, and does not get much support from her similar love interest. As the movie opens, the two get drunk at a club, come home, have sex, and put out a fire with wine. The next day, Gwen arrives late to her sister's wedding, only to destroy an expensive dessert and crash a limousine into a house.

The Gwen Cummings character is developed clearly and effectively. We learn about her lifestyle, recognize faults, and are shown a dark history through painfully real flashbacks. This is one of the things that make "28 Days" so involving. We discover elements about the character and notice inner changes as she learns of them herself. I really cared about this character.

Gwen is given a choice, she can serve jail time for her wrongdoing or can waive that and spend 28 days in a rehab clinic. She chooses rehab. The head counselor is Cornell (Steve Buscemi), who shows empathy but also coyness. Also present at his heath clinic is an assortment of characters who sing sappy melodies and share group love, including Daniel (Reni Santoni), with thick glasses and medical capabilities, Andrea (Azura Skye), Gwen's young roommate, and Eddie Boone (Viggo Mortensen), a famous baseball pitcher with a drinking problem.

Gwen's experiences in rehab seem truthful and accurate. Her withdrawals and agonies are realistic and knowledgeable. It is obvious the filmmakers and Sandra Bullock thoroughly researched the stresses and details of rehab.

Sandra Bullock performs with the right amount of immaturity and charisma. This wonderful actress is set free in this kind of heart filled role; she is best when the main character. Here, Gwen is free to tread the surface of the movie and still allows other characters to contribute to her defining.

About half way through, the movie losses its much needed focus on Gwen and drifts into detailing relationships, friendships, and other characters. While most of the events that take place surround Gwen, the movie was on the right track with its first half. "28 Days" is smart enough to recognize its blunder, however, and by the final scenes it regains the emotionally correct material and concludes with high standards.

The filmmakers are advertising it as a comedy, but only an isolation of sequences offer hilarity or slapstick. This movie teaches us lessons through its characters. And the lessons are well taught.

28 DAYS (2000) **1/2 Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortensen, Dominic West, Diane Ladd, Elizabeth Perkins, Steve Buscemi, Alan Tudyk, Michael o' Malley, Azura Skye, Reni Santoini, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Margo Martindale, Loudan Wainwright III. (Dir: Betty Thomas)

Addiction is not funny nor is the suffering it inflicts upon the addict and their friends and family but then again all `taboo' subjects have been scrutinized in these politically correct times we live in and here Sandra Bullock, The Girl Next Door that her adoring public has embraced as America's Sweetheart, wades in hip deep into a difficult balancing act as alcoholic/drug abuser Gwen Cummings, in this comedy-drama with more hits than misses - the working title could have been `Party Girl, Interrupted.'

Gwen is a free-spirited New York City based writer who enjoys living it up with her equally party hearty beau Jasper (West) by drinking and binging into the wee hours even if it means nearly missing her older sister Lily's (Perkins) wedding the next day as they stumble to the proceedings nursing a severe hangover quickly remedied by more imbibing at the reception resulting in Gwen losing her balance on the dance floor upsetting the many tiered wedding cake. Undeterred by her scene-causing out-of-control ramifications, Gwen staggers to the newlyweds' limo and careens along a suburban area looking for a `cake shop' to replace the damaged goods only to have her smash the car into a nearby house.

Flash forward to her being sentenced to Serenity Glen, a rehabilitation clinic, the type that offers New Age-y touchie-feely bonding and chanting (`Together! Together! NOOOO Drugs!') and a no-nonsense counselor named Cornell (Buscemi in a nicely handled understated turn) who sees right through Gwen's anger and stubbornness as she attempts to disassociate herself from her chores, group therapy and sneaking pills in via Jasper. After a mishap involving Gwen falling from her window (after a weak attempt to rid herself from the pills), she limpingly begs Cornell for a chance to redeem herself. Her sarcasm slowly drifts away as she comes to grips with her co-dependency on booze and pharmaceuticals thanks largely to her depressed teenage roomie Andrea (Skye) and new patient, Eddie Boone (Mortensen), a baseball pitcher overcoming many addictions including casual sex.

The film works solely on the fresh-scrubbed sexy appeal of Bullock in her range from comic drunkeness (a la `Arthur') to her scary withdrawl and gumption to change her life for the better. The humor comes thankfully to her fellow in-house patients including a gay German dancer (Tudyk who comes across as Andy Dick in `Sprockets') and the parody of a soap opera (`Santa Cruz') that the entire group becomes.well addicted to. It's hard to believe that the subject of a chemically dependent person could be funny, but that isn't the point. The point is that it doesn't make light of the situation at all (including the all-too-forseeable overdose of one of the characters to underscore just how serious it is), but it succeeds on the `patients-running-the-asylum' scenario - sort of a cross-blend of `One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', `Clean and Sober' and `M*A*S*H' with its hysterically, deadpanned homage of loudspeaker announcements.

Director Betty Thomas (`The Brady Bunch Movie', `Private Parts') serves her story by Susannah Grant (`Erin Brockovich') as best she can with interesting camera angles to distort the hyperreality of someone under the influence and able support including stand-up comic O'Malley (late of his short-lived eponymous sitcom) who harbors a not-so-secret crush on Bullock. Bullock does herself a service by starring in a tricky scenario by utilizing her natural acting style and stretching her chops both dramatically and comically.

It may be listed as one, but it is a serious subject. Some parts are stupid, but then again, things we do in life are sometimes stupid. Being the son of an alcoholic and having my own issues...I get it. Addiction sucks big time. The things they say about it are very true. This movie is not for everyone, but for me it was done well enough for me to realize some things about myself. No movie will ever be perfect about addiction and, of course, they need to lighten if up enough to get audience members. I personally like where she finally starts to realize things. And of course, you can slip now and then until it finally catches on.

There is a a very important message at the heart of this Betty Thomas film: Self Control from Indulgent excesses. The problem: the film itself tipsily overindulges its themes by balancing good drama with over-acting and imbalanced doses of comedy.

In a sense, the film knew it was dealing with touchy subject matter when it highlighted the realities of rehab in NY, but why did it need to purposefully throw in the stereotypical comedic archetypes - the viking accented Alan Tursdysk, or O'Malley's strapdown one liners, or for that matter, the debonair English accented intelligent metro lover in Dom West? Perhaps it was in 2000, and you needed to sell films that way to appeal to their target audience of teenagers who did weed and drank too much, but the fact is, when you have Steve Buscemi, Sandra Bullock and Viggo Mortensen in a film you can afford to push the drama-reality envelope and go in that direction.

In fact, the film's best moments are when Thomas does this- in a series of flashbacks to let the audience get in sync and depth with Bullock's character. And, there are scenes where the comedy can be done appropriately and in concordance with the film's thematic content- such as the skit at the end for Azura Skye's character. Sadly, these good moves are coupled with some really tipsy flaws, including the ending where Mortensen's character meets the soap star. Bullock's character also undergoes way too quick a character change (for 28 days) if one was to really nitpick.

However, the themes in this film make this a film i would still recommend to youth and young people. Azura Skye's character's loneliness, depression and suicide are genuinely depicted, and the fragile and important message of hope and redemption amid the perfunctory nature of life in the rehab centre that are celebrated in the plot really help this film regain its footing. When Bullock's character realises that this (the pills and drugs) was not a way to live, and Mortensen addresses her insecurities of not being able to do a single thing right, the film touches significant depths and strikes the chords of viewers. My personal favourite was the scene were Lizzy Perkins' character acknowledges the flaws of hers and her sister's lives and establishes love and hope in reconciliation. You see, it is the film's ability to reach such levels that I know this film suffered from tipsily overindulging its themes-trying to tie in too much to everyone- from being a comedy to a drama.