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28 Days
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 |
Release
Date: June 16th 2000
Distributor: S.P.E
Certificate: 15
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortensen,
Dominic West, Elizabeth Perkins, Azura Skye, Steve Buscemi
Director: Betty
Thomas
Running Time:
103
mins
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| After
the phenomenal success of 'Erin Brockovich', which showed Julia Roberts
to be a wonderful acting talent and not just a pretty face, we have another
film from screen writer, Susannah Grant which again centres around the trials
and tribulations of a dominant, central female character. Sandra Bullock
plays Gwen Cummings, party animal, fun-lover and alcoholic who takes things
too far at her sister's wedding and ends up stealing and crashing a limousine,
leading to her arrest and detention for 28 days at a rehab centre.
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| Unfortunately
as soon as Bullock gets to the rehab centre, the ending of the movie is
telegraphed to us and we know that she will see the error of her ways, that
drink and pills can never take the place of self-truth and hard work and
that those people with whom she used to have such a wild and wacky time,
such as ex-boyfriend and fellow drinker, Jasper (Dominic West) will have
to be consigned to her past. This is definitely one of Bullock's better
performances and she does, for the first part of the movie anyway, manage
to shrug off that nicer than nice, girl next door image with some deliciously
outrageous behaviour. Unfortunately, maybe due to the lightweight directing
of Betty Thomas ('Private Parts') Bullock never really seems to get her
teeth into what should surely be a very meaty and challenging role and we
are left with too many laughs and not enough soul-searching beneath the
tears. |
| The
subject matter of the story itself is serious indeed, dealing as it does
with alcohol and drug abuse, but as is the nature of recovering alcoholics,
their counsellors and the way that Americans in general would rather view
sombre subjects with a lot of humour, there are plenty of comic moments
to lighten the overall feel of the movie.The rehab centre is of course inhabited
by a Hollywood-esque cross-section of oddballs, patients and staff alike,
which include a depressed camp German (an hilarious characterisation by
Alan Tudyk) and an off-the-wall counsellor, Cornell, superbly played by
Steve Buscemi who effortlessly steals the film from under Bullock's nose. |
This
is not a bad film, it's just that with a different director Bullock may
well have found herself undergoing the radical transformation of screen
image enjoyed by Roberts but instead, by the end of the movie, we find ourselves
face to face with the same likeable, sociable, dippy woman that we've met
in most of her other incarnations. Because the rest of the movie has been
treated in such a comedic manner, when Bullock does actually get down to
the nitty-gritty of emotional turmoil and inner searching especially with
her sister Lily (Elizabeth Perkins) and her drug-addicted room-mate Andrea
(Azura Skye) we can't help but feel that the film coudn't make up it's mind
whether to be comic interlude or a social comment and has thus settled for
a rather shaky compromise.
DARRELL FINN |
