28 Days
USA 2000
Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
New York, the present. Gwen is good-time gal who traipses around the city with her equally lackadaisical boyfriend Jasper, getting very drunk and very loud. She sets the bedclothes on fire through carelessness, among other things. When Gwen ruins her sister Lily's wedding (while drunk she hijacks and crashes the bridal limo), she's packed off to a rehab centre where chanting and venting one's feelings are the order of the day.
Gwen rails at the centre's discipline (she's not even allowed to have painkillers), not to mention its 'touchy-feely' atmosphere. Before long Cornell, a no-nonsense counsellor, touches a nerve and Gwen is finally able to see her life needs to change. She begins opening up to her rehab-mates and engages in a mild flirtation with one of them, a sexy professional ball-player named Eddie. Gwen endures a measure of heartache when her roommate Andrea commits suicide. When her term is up, she returns home and faces the changes she needs to make (including splitting up with Jasper) in order to embark on her new drug- and alcohol-free life.
Review
28 Days might very well be viewed as one of those movies that take an honest snapshot of what it's like to go through substance-abuse rehab - but that doesn't make it any good. Director Betty Thomas and screenwriter Susannah Grant (who's capable of sharp writing, if the recent Erin Brockovich is any indication) try hard to show us the transformation Gwen must undergo in order to change her life, but none of it clicks. Sandra Bullock injects the early part of the movie with a minor jolt of energy. She's most interesting when she's playing out the blithe selfishness people with substance-abuse problems inflict on others. It's funny when she shows up at her sister's wedding, dishevelled and with black bra straps showing beneath her pastel bridesmaid's dress. But it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of her utter carelessness.
Once Bullock enters rehab, though, there's nothing to do but brace yourself for her initial resistance to it, which is of course soon to be followed by her total embrace of its philosophy. Along the way she is reconciled with her sister (the sadly underused Elizabeth Perkins) and recognises her addictions most likely stem from their mother's own substance-abuse problems. It's a wonderful, healing shock of recognition for her - bravo! But we saw it coming a mile away, and what do we get for our trouble?
Almost all of Gwen's revelations are like giant signposts rather than insights into some very deep-rooted problems. Anyone who's been through rehab in real life would be the first to tell you that there are no easy answers. But in 28 Days the most blatant realisations are treated as grand solutions. When Gwen screws up her leg and is forced to hobble around in a walking cast, her anger and frustration mount. Wise old counsellor Cornell knows just what to do: he hangs a signboard around her neck that says, "Ask me if I need help, and if I say no, give it to me anyway."
If pretty much all a movie character needs is a signboard to get to the root of what are, in real life, very subtle and difficult problems, it's safe to assume that character isn't getting much more than a good slathering of Hollywood gloss. When Gwen hangs a different signboard around the neck of her sensitive and ill-fated roommate (Drew Barrymore lookalike Azura Skye), it reads like nothing so much as a hamfisted Author's Message: "Don't ever be a slogan, because you are poetry."
That may very well be true: the poor girl is simply stuck in a movie that's a giant slogan - no poetry allowed here, because that would just be too messy. And people might be likely to miss the point, which is "Substance-abuse recovery is very very hard." 28 Days is not bad enough to ruin your life, nor is it good enough to change it even remotely. In any event, you won't need more than an hour to recover from it.
Credits
- Director
- Betty Thomas
- Producer
- Jenno Topping
- Screenplay
- Susannah Grant
- Director of Photography
- Declan Quinn
- Editor
- Peter Teschner
- Production Designer
- Marcia Hinds-Johnson
- Music
- Richard Gibbs
- ©Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc
- Production Companies
- Columbia Pictures presents a Tall Trees production
- Co-producer
- Celia Costas
- Production Supervisor
- Monica Levinson
- Production Co-ordinators
- Carrie DuRose
- New York:
- John De Simone
- Unit Production Managers
- Celia Costas
- New York:
- Patricia Doherty Hess
- Location Managers
- Declan Baldwin
- John B. Griffin Jr
- Assistant Directors
- Richard Graves
- Susan J. Hellmann
- Chad Graves
- New York:
- Michael Pitt
- Script Supervisor
- Benita Brazier
- Casting
- Francine Maisler
- Associates:
- Kathleen Driscoll-Mohler
- Jon Scott Strotheide
- Regional:
- Shay Bentley-Griffin
- ADR Group Voice:
- Loop Troop
- Camera Operators
- Patrick Capone
- Mark O'Kane
- New York:
- Harry Garvin
- Steadicam Operators
- Mark O'Kane
- New York:
- Harry Garvin
- Special Effects Co-ordinator
- Connie Brink
- Art Directors
- Bo Johnson
- Asheville:
- Rick Butler
- New York:
- Robert Guerra
- Set Designers
- Geoffrey S. Grimsman
- C. Scott Baker
- Bill King
- Set Decorator
- Debra Schutt
- Costume Designer
- Ellen Lutter
- Wardrobe Supervisors
- Lisa Frucht
- Pauline White-Kassulke
- New York:
- Deirdre Williams
- Wardrobe
- Joel Voorhies
- Make-up
- Key Artists:
- Sharon Ilson
- Pamela Westmore
- Artists:
- Sandra Orsolyak-Allen
- Kymbra Callaghan
- Stephen Kelley
- New York:
- Karen Reuter Fabbo
- Hair
- Key Stylist:
- Colleen Callaghan
- Janine Rath
- Stylist:
- Dale E. Brownell
- Judith H. Bickerton
- Asheville:
- Robert Steinken
- New York:
- Kerrie Smith
- Titles Design
- Imaginary Forces
- Opticals
- Pacific Title
- Orchestrations
- Patrick Russ
- Music Supervisor
- Randall Poster
- Music Editor
- Nick South
- Score Recordist/Mixer
- Jeff Vaughn
- Soundtrack
- "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash; "Bon Voyage (Escape mix)" by Fantastic Plastic Machine; "Come Softly to Me", "Rip It Up" by NRBQ; "Heaven and Mud", "The Drinking Song", "White Winos", "Dreaming" by Loudon Wainwright III; "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night; "Carolina in the Morning" by Mitch Miller; "Everything Is Beautiful" by Ray Stevens; "Happy Days Are Here Again" by Mitch Miller; "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" by Otis Redding; "Dèjà Vu" by David Crosby; "Show Me the Way to Go Home" by Tom Jones; "Happy Trails"
- Sound Mixer
- Tod A. Maitland
- Re-recording Mixers
- Gary Bourgeois
- Greg Orloff
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Michael J. Benavente
- Dialogue Editors
- Alison Fisher
- Jeena M. Phelps
- Sound Effects Editors
- George Simpson
- John Joseph Thomas
- ADR Editor
- Hugo Weng
- Foley
- Artists:
- Gary Hecker
- Michael Broomberg
- Mixer:
- Richard Duarte
- Editors:
- Mark Pappas
- Christopher Flick
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Daniel W. Barringer
- Cast
- Sandra Bullock
- Gwen Cummings
- Viggo Mortensen
- Eddie Boone
- Dominic West
- Jasper
- Diane Ladd
- Bobbie Jean
- Elizabeth Perkins
- Lily
- Steve Buscemi
- Cornell
- Alan Tudyk
- Gerhardt
- Michael O'Malley
- Oliver
- Azura Skye
- Andrea
- Reni Santoni
- Daniel
- Marianne Jean-Baptiste
- Roshanda
- Margo Martindale
- Betty
- Susan Krebs
- Evelyn
- Loudon Wainwright III
- guitar guy
- Katie Scharf
- young Gwen
- Meredith Deane
- young Lily
- Elizabeth Ruscio
- Mom
- Kathy Payne
- Aunt Helen
- Lisa Sutton
- Doctor Stavros
- Joanne Pankow
- saleslady/night tech
- Corinne Reilly
- Vanessa
- Andrew Dolan
- groom
- Maeve McGuire
- groom's mother
- Jim Moody
- chauffeur
- Christina Chang
- bridesmaid
- Adam Pervis
- younger boy at gas station
- Dan Byrd
- older boy at gas station
- Ric Reitz
- father at gas station
- Suellen Yates
- Andrea's mother
- Frank Hoyt Taylor
- equine therapist
- Brittani Warrick
- Traci
- Elijah Kelley
- Darnell
- Mike Dooly
- Marty
- Wendee Pratt
- Elaine
- Bill Anagnos
- NY cabdriver
- Soap Opera
- Jack Armstrong
- Falcon
- Judith Chapman
- Deirdre
- Suzanne Davis
- Darian
- Rod McCary
- Doctor Griffen Hartley
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 9,347 feet
- 103 minutes 52 seconds
- Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS
- Colour by
- DeLuxe