Film Review: 28 DAYS

 Eddie returns Gwen to rehab after she falls out a window.

Since new movies suck so bad these days I have taken to watching old ones I missed. One of those is 28 Days, released in 2000 and now showing on Netflix until the end of this month. I may even watch it again if the weather here in Maine doesn't improve; temps in the single digits combined with snow and ice make staying at home "to save lives" easy.

Sandra Bullock stars as Gwen, a sophisticated New York City writer whose traumatic childhood at the hands of her alcoholic mother is revisited several times in gauzy flashbacks. As always, the beautiful actress with the perfect body manages to impersonate a regular person quite convincingly. 

28 Days opens noisily with Gwen drinking and partying out of control. In the space of about ten movie minutes we see her dancing wildly on a bar, back home in bed with her boyfriend where her bra catches on fire, throwing on a dress and racing to her sister's wedding where she insults everyone she meets, falling backwards into and smashing the three-tiered wedding cake, running off in her underwear to carjack the honeymooner's limo, which she drives crazily and ultimately rams into a lovely house, crashing through the front porch and straight into the living room. It's a wild ride and if you don't have time for the whole movie, at least watch that. (I hope they did it in one take!)

After that, it's either jail time or a month in rehab for Gwen. From then on the film focuses on a group of addicts who have hit rock-bottom and ended up at a rehab facility in suburban New York. There are alcoholics, substance abusers and pill-poppers of all ages, races and genders. Working with their counselors, they each have a month to get it together. Some do, some leave and return, and one dies. 

A notable performance by Steve Buscemi as a deadly serious psychiatrist type is an interesting switch from the kooky guys he usually portrays. Also on hand and looking twenty years younger are Viggo Mortensen as Eddie, a famous ball player addicted to women and alcohol, and Elizabeth Perkins as Lili, Gwen's older sister whose wedding got trashed. Several other actors whose names escape me (including the guy who played Poppy on Seinfeld) but the face is familiar round things out.

Bonus: If you are addicted to anything -- drugs, food, booze, sex, whatever -- there are enough feel-good bromides tossed around in the script that one or two may hit home and actually be of help.