28 Days

This is one of those films where you have to make sure you’re grabbing the right one, as this film came out first but it has a name to a similar movie that is definitely not a drama.

28 Days is a film about addiction and how to overcome it, staring Sandra Bullock as Gwen Cummings who lives her days loaded with alcohol, “VIKaDEN” as our lovely receptionist Betty calls it, and any number of mood altering substances. Raised by an alcoholic mother who may or may not have died from alcohol poisoning, Gwen is the younger of two sisters and the story comes to a head when she accidentally ruins her sister Lily’s wedding by giving a horrific speech that claims Lily (Elizabeth Perkins) is marrying her husband as a consolation prize, destroying their cake, and then subsequently steals their limo and crashes it into the side of a house.

Amazingly, she’s given the choice between rehab and jail because this is a movie and in movie-land crimes are forgiven and consequences are enjoyable if you’re willing to let go. Thankfully it isn’t like this for Gwen at first. The rehab facility is not what she wants to do, not only because she “doesn’t have a problem” but because of the chanting, the sharing, and the no electronics rule. Being separated from her boyfriend, Jasper (Dominic West) isn’t the best thing either, at least in her mind, and for these reasons Gwen decides to sabotage herself and get thrown out.

There’s just one problem, not completing the program the way they have laid it out means that she will face real consequences and go to jail for her sentence. Gwen doesn’t take this well but she finally starts to get this program and decides to take it seriously from now on.

Around this point we are fully introduced to some of the other characters in the rehab, like Gwen’s roommate Andrea Delaney (Azura Skye), Eddie Boone (Viggo Mortensen), Gerhardt (Alan Tudyk), and Roshanda (Marianne Jean-Baptiste). They each play a part during the film, drawing Gwen into this world where she must self-accept, self-forgive, and she finally understands that she does have a problem and she must start to change what she is doing.

It is a sad story all around but it features an uplifting message that one should never give up, no matter how much is stacked against you. Sandra Bullock has always been able to keep me invested in a work, whether it was a drama, comedy, or romantic-comedy. She is quirky and interesting as an actress and a person and this is one of those films that is important for people to see.