PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com "We Put the SIN in Cinema"
A change of pace for comedic director Betty Thomas, 28 Days is a wholly predictable story of a booze-and-pill addict that learns how to overcome her problems after spending some court-ordered time at a rehabilitation center. Aside from a few interesting camera tricks, there's nothing here that you haven't already seen a dozen times. The big drawing card here is supposed to be Sandra Bullock, but she hasn't exactly been lighting the show business world on fire lately. Most people consider her a top-shelf, A-list Hollywood star, but she's only had three bona-fide hits (Speed, While You Were Sleeping and A Time to Kill) and those films are all over five years old.
Bullock (Forces of Nature) stars as Gwen Cummings, who we learn is an out-of-control partier via Days' first scene. The Clash's `Should I Stay Or Should I Go' blares over a frenzy of slow-mo and sped-up film as Gwen and her boyfriend Jasper (Dominic West, William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream) pound drinks, dance and pass out on the eve of her sister Lilly's (Elizabeth Perkins, Crazy in Alabama) wedding. The next day, Gwen and Jasper are late to the nuptials and trash the reception before Gwen steals a limousine, loses control and crashes into a lovely Bedford, New York home.
Days immediately hops forward in time, where Gwen is being dropped off at a rehabilitation center called Serenity Glen, where she has been ordered to spend four weeks in lieu of serving any jail time. Sounds like a pretty light sentence to me. Of course, Gwen plans on coasting through her court-ordered time at the Glen, but predictably begins to bond with the other addicts once the waves of withdrawal begin to set in. We learn from Gwen's flashbacks that she inherited alcoholism from her mom, who taught her young daughters that having fun was the most important thing in life because `If you're not having fun, what's the friggin' point?'
Serenity Glen is packed full of stock characters, including the old woman (Diane Ladd, Primary Colors), the middle-aged man (Thomas regular Reni Santoni, `Poppy' from Seinfeld), the black girl (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Secrets & Lies), the teenaged girl (Azura Skye, Zoey, Duncan, Jack & Jane), the gay guy (Alan Tudyk, Patch Adams) and the smart-mouth that tries to get in Gwen's pants (Mike O'Malley, ESPN's `The Rick'). And what's with Jake from Melrose Place landing the big role of the hunky heartthrob for whom Gwen falls? Oh, wait – it's only Viggo Mortensen (A Walk on the Moon). Speaking of odd casting, Tudyk's character reeks of fellow effeminate, blond stringbean Andy Dick. Maybe Dick was supposed to be in the film but backed out because of real-life rehab.
Days also features this odd guy (Loudon Wainwright III) playing a guitar like a Greek chorus (a la Jonathan Richman in There's Something About Mary), but then he disappeared until the ending. There was also an inappropriate amount of time spent on a fictional soap opera that the Serenity Glen inmates watched. But the biggest problem of all is Bullock's character. Are we supposed to feel sorry for her? What about the guy that owned the limo that she stole and crashed? Or the people that owned the house she ruined?
Thomas' (Doctor Dolittle, Private Parts) direction is the only thing that keeps Days afloat. Together with cinematographer Declan Quinn (Flawless), Thomas creates several memorable scenes where Gwen flashes back to either her drunk mother or wild drug-and-liquor parties, which result in the character turning on all of the faucets in the bathroom to drown out the sounds of her past. Like most of her previous work, Thomas also uses a handheld camera to shoot some of the `group' scenes, which lends a nice fly-on-the-wall feel to the film.
Days' linear script was written Susannah Grant, who penned the equally conventional (but much more enjoyable) Erin Brockovich. It's your basic story about a person that needs help but refuses it before finally accepting it, overcoming their problem, and then moving on with their life. The plot offers nothing that you wouldn't expect and, at times, the film seems like it should be on the Lifetime network, or possibly a TV movie of the week, which is where Bullock seems to be headed. Of other note, the `F' word was noticeably removed from at least one scene to preserve the PG-13 rating. Like there's going to be a bunch of kids between thirteen and sixteen clamoring to see this.
1:43 - PG-13 for substance abuse, adult language and minor adult situations
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