28 Days
*
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre)
Released in the UK by Columbia Tristar on June 16, 2000; certificate 15;
103 minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio 1.85:1
Directed by Betty Thomas; produced by
Jenno Topping.
Written by Susannah Grant.
Photographed by Declan Quinn; edited by Peter
Teschner.
CAST.....
Sandra Bullock..... Gwen Stevens
Dominic West..... Jasper
Viggo Mortensen..... Eddie Boone
Elizabeth Perkins..... Lily
Azura Skye..... Andrea
Steve Buscemi..... Cornell
Alan Tudyk..... Gerhardt
Michael O'Malley..... Oliver
Reni Santoni..... Daniel
Actors dream of getting offers to play alcoholic
leads -- everyone's been drunk, everyone knows how it feels to be miserable
or self-destructive, and when you project those emotions onscreen, it looks
darn impressive. In truth it's a far greater challenge to perform well in
action pictures or romantic comedies -- they're not the most prestigious
of genres, the scripts are usually clichéd, and the characters are
often silly and one-dimensional.
It has therefore been puzzling to watch Sandra
Bullock's career over the past few years. In one of the best films of 1994,
the tense blockbuster "Speed", she gave an Oscar-calibre performance as a
regular young woman trapped in a deadly situation. She was also pretty charming
in "While You Were Sleeping", a nice little love story released the following
year. These two films made her a star. Pretty much every effort since has
been crap. "The Net". "Speed 2: Cruise Control". "Practical Magic". "Forces
of Nature". You get the idea.
"28 Days" suggests that this may
be more than a temporary slump. Bullock plays Gwen Stevens, a directionless
writer (read: unemployed slut) sentenced to a month in rehab after being
drunk and disorderly at her sister's wedding and then destroying a small
house with a stolen car. Like most substance abusers, she doesn't realise
she's got a problem, and at first resists treatment. "I'm not like those
people out there!" she assures her counsellor. "I can control myself!" The
movie depicts the process by which Gwen begins to stop kidding herself, and
tries to go clean.
No matter how badly a film like this is written,
its very nature makes it a perfect showcase for acting talent. Bullock has
to exist in states of inebriation and sobriety, and that hellish stage of
coming down from one to the other; and of course there are a lot of dramatic
dilemmas, involving settling into the rehab environment, confronting user
friends, dealing with temptation. Given all this, it's amazing what a bad
job she does. Bullock has neither the grit nor desperation of a real drunk,
and is unaware of an elemental truth about alcohol that I could have told
you when I was twelve: when you're under its influence, and you don't want
people to know it, you don't grandly stagger around or slur your words. Bullock's
attempt at appearing smashed is so phoney that I'm not convinced she's ever
taken a drink; research for the role probably consisted of watching Lee Marvin
in "Cat Ballou".
Her character is irritating from the git-go, because
she's such a childish, oblivious twit. Midway into the film we get childhood
flashbacks revealing that Gwen's mother was an alcoholic, too, and the
psychological depth of this association is risible. The cast of characters
she's surrounded by in rehab would be more at home in a satire: one, a camp
German bodybuilder, makes squealing sounds like a pig, even while talking.
Another is emblematic of the stupidity of Susannah Grant's screenplay --
he's a doctor who had to give himself a tracheotomy, after botching giving
himself a stomach pump. He was doing that to prevent getting a hangover,
but any doctor who has the knowledge and ability to perform his own stomach
pump would also know that you can prevent a hangover by drinking two pints
of water before you go to bed.
What is the movie's message, anyway? That alcoholics
can be cured in twenty-eight days by hanging around a bunch of unrealistic
fruitcakes who chant "Lean on Me" every morning? The rehab clinic we see
here is a brainwashing centre, where everyone refuses to deal with problems,
in favour of acting like kids and spouting self-help platitudes. Maybe there's
a method in Bullock's madness after all -- only a fake drunk could be cured
by this place.
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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