(out of four)
By David N. Butterworth
In preparing for my review of 28 Days, Sandra Bullock's new melodrama, I
gatecrashed an AA meeting at which a young woman, probably not much older than Bullock's
character, spoke for thirty minutes about her struggle with alcoholism.
What this woman had to say or, perhaps equally importantly, the way in which she told
her story, was absolutely fascinating. It was like watching Spalding Gray doing his Swimming
to Cambodia thing. She kept going for thirty minutes straight with barely a pause. Her
monologue was loaded with humor, pathos, and poignancy. It was filled with harsh truths,
anguish, pain and suffering, yet is was somehow delightful. It was the kind of speech I
wish I could have captured on videotape to replay over and over again to savor every
heartfelt moment, every aspiration, every moving detail.
28 Days is not like this.
It's a well-meaning film about what it's like to have a Bud with your daily Wheaties
but it's strictly AA Lite.
Bullock plays a party girl who, after taking out a lawn jockey and
crashing a limo into someone's porch during her sister's wedding, is sentenced to 28 days
of detox in a rehab clinic. Here she gets with the program with a bunch of thinly-written
caricatures of drug and alcohol abusers, many of whom are played by miscast performers
(including Steve Buscemi as her counselor and Viggo Mortensen as a pro-baseball player
with a love for the soaps). Bullock's character spends more time trying the break the
rules than trying to quit drinking and as a result her month-end turnabout seems hurried
and implausible.
There have been some fine movies about alcoholism (The Lost Weekend) and there
have been some not-so-fine movies about alcoholism (Leaving Las Vegas). 28 Days,
alas, comes closer to the latter.
Bullock is good, and her relationship with her sister–played by Elizabeth
Perkins–is excellent, but 28 Days is still about 26 days shy of sobriety.
