Cast: Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortensen, Dominic West, Diane Ladd, Elizabeth Perkins, Steve Buscemi, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Azura Skye, Alan Tudyk
Director: Betty Thomas
Producer: Jenno Topping
Screenplay: Susannah Grant
Cinematography: Declan Quinn
Music: Richard Gibbs
U.S. Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Following in the footsteps of Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock has apparently decided that the best way to shed her romantic comedy image is to plunge headlong into a drama about alcoholism. But there's a key difference between Ryan's When a Man Loves a Woman and Bullock's 28 Days: the former is an effective, honest story while the latter is contrived and unconvincing. 28 Days represents the Hollywood-ized view of alcoholism and rehabilitation: recovery really isn't all that bad, and, after a month of secluded twelve-stepping and bonding with society's other cast-offs, even the most serious addict will be on the straight-and-narrow with all past misdeeds forgiven. What a pretty picture!
Alcoholism is a disease of denial, and Bullock's Gwen Cummings is still in that mode even after a judge orders her to spend 28 days at Serenity Glen, a rehab center for the mind, body, and spirit. This is her punishment for driving (while drunk) a stolen limousine across someone's front yard and onto their front porch. As all rebellious characters must do in movies like this, Gwen immediately sets out to find a way to beat the system. Her counselor, the wise Cornell Shaw (an underused Steve Buscemi), gives her enough rope to hang herself, then, when she suddenly realizes that she needs help and can't "just stop" any time she wants, he's there to point her in the right direction. Soon, she's singing songs with the other inmates and trying to mend fences with her older sister, Lilly (Elizabeth Perkins), whose wedding she ruined while on a bender. Meanwhile, her drinking partner and boyfriend, Jasper (Dominic West), represents temptation. Every time he visits Gwen, he brings along concealed booze and drugs.
Very little in 28 Days rings true. This is light fluff masquerading as heavy drama. Granted, all movies about alcoholism don't have to be as traumatic as Ken Loach's My Name Is Joe, but a little more realism should be injected into the mix. Serenity Glen is presented as a wonderful place filled with strange-but-lovable kooks, and Gwen's rehabilitation only takes a couple of wrong turns. The film implies a connection between Gwen's alcoholism and her mother's, but, aside from a few flashbacks and several confrontational scenes between her and her sister, the family dynamic is largely ignored.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about 28 Days is the lazy way in which it approaches the subject matter - almost as if it couldn't risk being too hard-hitting with Sandra Bullock as the star. This isn't a credible story about someone fighting an addiction - it's a fantasy version that's as sanitized as the prostitution aspect of Pretty Woman. In the real world, everything about alcoholism is painful and ugly, yet there's very little of that in 28 Days, which comes up with a joke or a one-liner any time things threaten to become too serious. The script, by Susannah Grant (who also penned the infinitely better Erin Brockovich), is superficial, and Betty Thomas' direction is unsure. Thomas, who primarily helms comedies (Doctor Dolittle, The Brady Bunch Movie), has moved beyond her limited comfort zone. She seems to believe that strange camera angles and other visual tricks will compensate for the screenplay's deficiencies.
Although 28 Days may represent a departure for Sandra Bullock, it's not a successful one. While her career isn't officially over, it has been four or five years and about a dozen movies since she has done something memorable and box office solvent. Bullock's strongest quality has always been her girl-next-door charm and likability. Here, she sacrifices this trait, and the result is a flat and uncharismatic performance. It's hard to generate any sympathy for Gwen, who comes across as a whiny party girl. And, despite fake bags under her eyes and a bad hair style, Bullock still looks too well groomed for the part.
The supporting characters are the usual suspects - an assortment of stock oddballs who turn out to be good, caring people. Alan Tudyk plays a gay man with a bad Teutonic accent who cries at the slightest provocation. Diane Ladd is the motherly Bobbie Jean. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is a drug addict who neglected her children (the scene in which they confront her offers one of 28 Days' few dramatically effective moments). Azura Skye is Gwen's roommate, an insecure 17 year-old with a soap opera fetish. Reni Santoni is a gruff doctor who obsesses over a scar on his throat. And Viggo Mortensen is a baseball player whose sex-and-booze excesses landed him in rehab.
28 Days possesses all the depth and insight of a made-for-TV movie. Anchored by subject matter that has the power to propel a wrenching story, this movie falls far short of its potential. With a curiously skewed tone that rambles from serious to playful, 28 Days ends up too light for serious drama and too heavy for comedy. That's just one more problem with a film that could have worked if it had been more concerned with showing emotionally honesty than with putting something on the screen bland enough to have a degree of mass appeal.
© 2000 James Berardinelli