28 Days

28 DAYS

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: nudity, sensuality, language

Rated:

Gwen Cummings (Sandra Bullock) is out of control. A self-proclaimed Alcoholic and part-time drug user, she has completely destroyed her sister's wedding. After arriving forty-five minutes late as the maid of honor, making an embarrassingly bad toast, slap-dancing on the floor, demolishing the four-layer wedding cake, and finally stealing a limousine and driving it to its destruction (all on the intent of 'fixing it')... Gwen finds herself sentenced to twenty-eight days in rehab or jail. It's her choice and obviously... she chooses rehab.

Her roommate is a potentially screwed-up teenage girl with a passion for soap operas but a good heart. Slowly Gwen begins to befriend and understand Andrea while finding the other people in her 'group' almost unbearable. There's the misunderstood, stereotyped gay man (in this account a German), a woman mentally abused by her husband's affairs, alcoholics, druggies, cutters... all manner of person seeking help and/or salvation to their incontrollable urges. Only Gwen is rebellious, but she makes the mistake of asking where she can get high... right in front of her camp counselor, who informs her that any mess-up's will send her to the alternative. In an uphill battle, Gwen must choose between what 'feels good' for the moment -- and her live-high-life with her live-in boyfriend -- or to patch up the misshapen hole that is left of her life and find reconciliation with her sister. As Lily herself proclaimed, 'Sometimes, Gwen, you make it really difficult to love you.'

The choice isn't that apparent at the first, but soon Gwen is forced into making a decision. She takes more time to understand and help Andrea, who is a secret cutter in times of torment; she also befriends a pro-ball player who admits himself for alcohol rehab. But the time is coming when Gwen must face her sister and try desperately to patch up a broken relationship... after all, she did screw up her sister's wedding, and that isn't easy to apologize for. Overall, the film has a good heart. It casts drugs, sex, and alcohol in a bad light. Unfortunately, it also laughs at them.

There are several implied sexual scenes -- two of which are seen in passing in an elevator between patients, another with a man coming half-dressed out of a woman's room -- and lots of innuendos. Andrea's soap is desperately bad, with bed-hopping characters (only hinted-at with dialogue) and a wink at a sexual relationship between unknowing half-siblings. When Andrea is released from rehab, Gwen and her friends do a mock parody of the show that hints at these various discrepancies. There's brief rear nudity, implications of past improprieties, and some immodesty. Overlooking the sensual current that flows through much of the film, there's also bad language (one f-word and many mild profanities, as well as repetitive uses of Oh, my God!) and substance abuse. Gwen nearly kills herself by trying to rescue the drugs she threw out the window only hours before. Boyish jealousy comes to blows. There are a lot of flashbacks as Gwen begins to remember the past... her childhood with an alcoholic mother. There's also a drug-induced suicide that leaves emotional scars on many of our prominent characters.

There are a lot of elements of good in the film, but in all honestly it shoots itself in the foot with sensuality and brief profanity. I was able to look past the flaws and find the lessons tucked away in the film's packaging, but those looking for a fun Sandra Bullock film like While You Were Sleeping or Miss Congeniality will be disappointed. The laughs are uncomfortable, but the heart-tugging moments of reconciliation and change very real. At the risk of giving the ending away (which seems to end prematurely) Gwen does choose to abandon all ties with her past and walk 'cleanly' into the future. 28 Days tries very hard to be both comedy and drama, but winds up being much more serious than comical.