Too much of everything

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

After a heavy session of alcohol and drugs the night before, hard-partying Gwen Cummings oversleeps the next morning and arrives late for her sister's wedding. Matters are made worse when Gwen continues drinking in the morning and ends up ruining her sister's wedding (by destroying the wedding cake - although she ruins the wedding in other ways as well). Determined to make amends, she steals a limo and heads off to get another wedding cake, but sadly, en route, she loses control of the car and crashes into a house. This results in Gwen being forced into rehab (in order to avoid jail) where she starts to re-evaluate her life....Before I begin with the negatives I will try and focus on some of the positives; for a start there is Sandra Bullock's performance. At times, as an actress, I have found her performances to be a tad annoying (although I usually forgive this as she's quite easy on the eye). But here she was actually very good (from the drunk party animal through the inevitable rehabilitation process). Dominic West also gives a larger than life performance and many of the scenes involving him are the ones that tend to stick in the mind. The scene where Gwen is trying to clean the toilets while hopping round on one leg was also quite amusing and I liked the scene where the patients recreated a scene from another patients favourite soap opera - it was funny and warm. However, outside of these things I'm struggling for anymore positives...What annoying me slightly about this film was how the majority of the patients were depicted and their progression within the facility; there seemed to be endless group therapy sessions with occasional solo interjections from the patients at random intervals, but these things never seemed to slot anywhere into the story and seemed to amount to very little. Aside from Gwen, no-one else really seemed to change much which for me meant that there was very little character/narrative progression. We also don't learn much about the majority of the patients (except for one who is a drug addict); I mean why are they in there? How long have they been in there? What progress have they made? You don't learn any of this and the result of all this is a rather shallow film that lacks any sort of realism. The lack of realism is further highlighted by the ex-patient at the end with the plant - I mean could you really imagine him being allowed to join the real world? Despite the fact that I found that scene amusing I think you'd have to be a bit naïve and simple to not see how phony it felt.There is quite a powerful scene involving one of the patients dying from a drug overdose, but aside from this scene I didn't feel that the film offered a particularly realistic insight into the treatment of rehab patients and felt that the director cut a lot of corners and substituted realism with a feel-good, safe and generally predictable narrative. It's watchable, but it's not a patch on some other mental institution films such as Dream Team or One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

I've always had a thing for 28 Days. So often in Hollywood there are films that try tackle real issues, but not all of them feel like they've achieved anything, or even portrayed said issues in a realistic, compassionate way. This one shines a probing, nonjudgmental spotlight onto alcoholism, in all it's subtleties and absurd truths, like few other films have. Many films portray alcoholism like a raging mania that turns you rabid and irrational, and while that certainly can be the case, I like how here they show what a semi-functioning addict looks like, as opposed to your atypical abusive archetype. It's also just more pleasant fare too. Despite being a story about great struggle and personal woe, there's lightheartedness to it that's welcome in such stressful territory. Sandra Bullock, that luminous brunette, is pretty much instantly likable in anything, a beautiful, effortless, natural born movie star, giving any film an instant advantage simply by having her headline. Here she plays Gwen, a NYC newspaper columnist who, along with her Brit boyfriend (Dominic West), has a fairly serious problem with the booze. After spectacularly ruining her poor sister's (Elizabeth Perkins) and recklessly crashing a stolen limousine, the thin line between functionality and outright self destruction is crossed, and it becomes time to seek help. Court ordered into rehab, Gwen ships off to an upstate clinic to sleep off the hangover, but the real progress comes from first admitting she has a problem at all. Like any film about rehab, the facility is home to many quaint, quirky people for her to meet, bond and squabble with, fellow addicts on the road to whatever recovery means to them. Steve Buscemi underplays a sly turn as the program founder and lead social worker, Viggo Mortensen is sorta kinda a love interest, but also not really, in an ambiguously written supporting role, and there's solid work from Alan Tudyuk, Marieanne Jean-Baptiste, Azura Skye and Margo Martindale too. Parallel to her treatment we see hazy flashbacks to Gwen being raised by her severely alcoholic mother (Diane Ladd), and get a glimpse of how the hectic, sprawling life of someone who drinks just seems like the mundane to them, internally until they decide to swallow that proverbial red pill, step outside the routine and examine their choices. It's a great little film with an organic, realistic arc for Bullock that she inhabits with grace, humility and humour.

28 days is an average AA propaganda film, which is to say that it is highly misleading. The acting and directing is adequate but is hampered by the lack of realism in the plot. Viggo Mortensen and Dominic West, the two headlining male leads and competing romantic interests for Sandra Bullock's Gwen, come the closest to overcoming the restrictions of the plot.For example, the film turns on the idea that virtually everyone who has ever had a substance abuse problem would benefit from AA and 12 Step, even if attendance is court ordered. To further this propaganda goal, the plot has Gwen end up being court-ordered into a 12 Step rehab. The reality is that someone is more likely to be harmed than helped by 12 Step, particularly if they are coerced into participating in 12 Step.In keeping with the Pro AA propaganda, initially the character of Gwen resists participation in AA and 12 Step. Then after falling out a window and breaking her leg, while trying to obtain drugs in the rehab facility, she decides that she will try AA and 12 Step's ideology of powerlessness and total abstinence from all drugs in the future. This change in attitude is depicted as healing improvement. However, for the idea of "powerlessness" to be healing, it has to be misinterpreted. For many, if they actually think that they have no power to consume or not consume their drug of choice, they will OD and die, which, unfortunately is more likely for opiate addicts to do when participating in AA and 12 Step than if they just continued to use on their own.The film also distorts actual AA and 12 Step philosophy, but generally speaking for AA philosophy to be palatable for the public, it needs to be at least slightly distorted. For example, actual AA philosophy doesn't really encourage any kind of the healing work with animals and trust exercises that the rehab of the film depicts. AA and 12 Step focus more on eliminating "resentment," and taking a kind of responsibility for one's feelings that in some contexts is actually blaming the victim. Members are encouraged to see themselves as liars, users and abusers, and if they resist this labeling to be told that they aren't spiritual. Thus, the emotional support that those with more time in 12 Step have for newer members is very unrealistic.The film also tries to tackle the contentious topic of sex for those early in sobriety, yet it slants it here too. The most abusive and yet common sexual relationships are between men with multiple years in 12 Step Program and attractive women who are very new to AA and 12 Step. In this sense Cornell, played by Steve Buscemi, is more a fantasy of the AA counselor than the reality. In practical application, the counselor would more than likely be trying to seduce those he was supposedly trying to help, at the same time that he was lecturing them on their "resentment" issues and telling them that he "was not responsible" for their feelings if at some point in time they felt betrayed by his seduction.This said, the camaraderie between those struggling to control their substance abuse that the film depicts is real, but much of that evaporates in standard AA and 12 Step meetings. Typical AA and 12 Step is run by old timers with narcissist disorders who seem to enjoy being emotionally abusive to newer members and then claiming that this is a kind of "spirituality" to be abusive or that it is "progress and not perfection" in terms of their own flaws and abuses but that newcomers must be entirely obedient to the Big Book and their sponsors if they want to stay sober and avoid the "jail, institutions, or death" that awaits those that decide not to participate in AA.Of course, in keeping with standard AA propaganda, the film never mentions that AA only has a 5% success rate, and that 12 Step has an even lower success rate with opiates, and that there are 10 major alternatives to AA and 12 Step.So my main problem with this film is the same argument that applies to any AA propaganda film. It pretends to have a life-saving message of hope, but is instead rife with misinformation, that will cause the death and suffering that it supposedly is working to avoid. 10 Major Alternatives to AA (circa 2017) Free Self-Help online reference: HAMS network; SMART Recovery; SOS sobriety; Women for Sobriety (includes Men for Sobriety) Life ring; Moderation; Reddit (entirely online)   Help involving paid professionals online reference : Rational Recovery; Sinclair Method (for alcohol, uses the medication Naltrexone); Ibogaine Alliance (for opiates);   Sinclair method and Ibogaine use medication to rewire the addiction pathways in the brain *most doctors can prescribe the medication Naltrexone, but Goodman center.com is a treatment center specifically based on the Sinclair method. **aftercare is recommended, such as genesisiboganiecenter.com, holistichousevegas.com, and medicineheartrecovery.com

28 Days is a nearly forgotten, but incisive look at the disease of addiction and, more specifically, the rehabilitation process and what a roller coaster ride it can become.The film stars Sandra Bullock as Gwen, a party girl whose drinking and drugging at her sister's wedding climaxes with her crashing a stolen limo into a house, resulting in court-ordered rehab for our heroine and how her deep denial about the fact that she actually has a problem keeps her from taking the process seriously, especially when her boyfriend (Dominic West), who is still on the outside and still partying, doesn't acknowledge Gwen's problem either.This film will really hit home with those who have struggled with addiction. It perfectly captures the entire process of rehabilitation...where the addiction took the person, the descent to rock bottom, the initial denial of the problem and that moment of clarity when the alcoholic/addict realizes that they are powerless over drugs and alcohol and become willing to do whatever it takes to get better.This is one of Bullock's strongest performances, playing a gamut of emotions that result from her initial frustration with her situation, her recognition of herself in fellow addicts, and most importantly, the realization that she can't live the way she did and hang with the same people she hung with before if she wants to stay sober. Steve Buscemi offers one of his most likable characters as the head of the rehab center, whose relationship with Gwen gets off to a VERY shaky start. Reni Santoni, Diane Ladd, Mike O'Malley, Alan Tudyk, Azura Skye, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste are solid as the members of Gwen's therapy group as is Viggo Mortenson as a former baseball superstar who has a brief encounter with Gwen. Mortenson is part of one of the scene's saddest scenes as his character is recognized during a field trip by a child fan whose adult chaperon figures out Mortenson's situation. Elizabeth Perkins also scores as Gwen's sister, who has one powerful scene during a family therapy session.Suhsannah Grant's smart screenplay and Betty Thomas' stylish direction are the frosting on the cake here...a clever and entertaining comedy that broaches some uncomfortable subjects but is effectively stemmed in realism.