28 Days (104 Minutes)
Instead of getting some good “yes and” energy, we are getting a lot of “no now what”.
28 Days (2000) is the type of movie that you understand why it was made but also why you’ve never seen it before. It is not “so bad it’s good”, not a secret cult classic, not a blockbuster. It is just OK. But, I watched it, and so, I will dissect it, as is my great task here.
Gwen Cummings is a New York City gal writer alcoholic who finally gets into real trouble when she drunkenly drives off in the limo from her sister’s wedding and crashes into a house. Rather than receive jail time, she is sentenced to 28 days in rehab. Gwen is certain she doesn’t have a problem and spends her early days of rehab pissed at the weird cast of characters she meets while in therapy. But wouldn’t you know it… she eventually comes around.
This movie has the hallmarks of a quirky indie film -- without any of the charm. There’s a Hollywood darling playing a total mess, the serious content handled with humor, and a large cast of interesting characters. The first of these being the only one 28 Days manages to pull off because Sandra Bullock is seriously talented. The content and the rest of the cast however, are really hard to look past.
Let’s start with the serious content handled with humor: addiction. This is a chronic mental health condition that claims thousands of lives every year and only 10% of the almost 21 million Americans suffering from it receive treatment. Basing a comedy off of this is brave-- but not impossible. Plenty of dark comedies have been very successful, but I found it hard to laugh at this movie. I actually can’t believe it’s categorized as a comedy. I think the issue is that most of the comedy is derived from Gwen’s addiction-- not from her environment, her friends, her personality etc.
The first twenty minutes of the movie we are getting to know her while she’s addicted and I wasn’t sure if I should be laughing. She falls down drunk at her sister’s wedding, she almost sets her apartment on fire, she crashes the limo. The scenes play as though I should be laughing at what a mess she is, but it’s hard to do knowing she’s headed to rehab. In another moment she falls out of a window and breaks her leg trying to get a bottle of Vicodin she earlier dumped outside. Again, it feels like I should have laughed, but I didn’t. I think if the humor was derived from conflict with her fellow patients and her counselor instead, this movie would have had a better shot at landing in the sweet spot so many dark comedies do.
But that would be hard to do with the weirdly assembled supporting cast. They’re all brilliant people in their own right, but lack personality and chemistry with each other. I actually don’t even know where to begin. Steve Buscemi is in, what I think, is probably his blandest role ever as Gwen’s counselor, Cornell. This character adds so little to the film you could have literally cast anyone, so why cast a brilliant character actor like Buscemi in the role? This is after Armageddon, The Big Lebowski, Con Air, and Fargo, so it’s not like he was a nobody at this time. The other patients are really weirdly assembled and include Mike O’Malley as a trust fund kid, Alan Tudyk as gay, Dutch immigrant Gerhardt, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a drug-addicted mother of two. And then you have what we call the “love interests”. Gwen’s boyfriend Jasper played by Dominic West and Viggo Mortensen as a famous baseball pitcher patient. I can’t explain why none of these people work together but they just don’t. This isn’t an ensemble cast like Soap Dish or Wet Hot American Summer where you go “Wow I can’t believe they got all these people in one movie together!” No one’s humor matches well and instead of getting some good “yes and” energy, we are getting a lot of “no now what”.
It’s possible that awkward vibe is what they were going for but again, the filing of this movie under comedy category makes me think otherwise. Tudyk, who is usually charming, is such a bizarre character it’s distracting. For the first 40 minutes I thought he was changing his accent every scene on purpose, like as a character trait, but no, he wasn’t. Really uncomfortable accent to sit through. I do have to say I did laugh a couple times with him. One is while they’re doing a ropes course and the harness is just straddling his junk like crazy and he actually says “Hey look at my junk”. Which I have to imagine was improvised and thank god because the laughs are few and far between. The other is at the very end when Gwen runs into him at a plant shop. He’s wearing a t-shirt from his supposed one man show at The Public Theater-- and that is the kind of character building I wish this movie had earlier on.
In fact, Gwen mentions she is a writer once or twice and then that’s it. We never see her writing outside of a play they do as a farewell to her roommate. We actually see Viggo do more of his job -- pitching -- than of our main character Gwen’s. It’s a really weird choice because we never see how her drinking has been impacting her life other than the one wedding scene. It would be nice to see her struggling to write in her everyday life and then regaining that focus when she’s clean. I think (??) the script tries to do this with the playwriting scene, but we’re never given any insight or tools to know for sure. We’re left in the dark a lot with this one.
I wanted to like this movie. I was home alone and looking to be moved by a dark yet charming comedy and instead was left wanting. Gwen’s character arc is quite flat and ends in the weirdest way possible-- she finds Gerhardt in a plant store after she breaks up with Jasper. It would make sense if she and Gerhardt were close but she spends the majority of the movie pretty turned off by his antics. In fact, she doesn’t form any truly close bonds with anyone other than Viggo (forgive me for not knowing or caring to know the character name). Her transformation has no bearing on her life outside of her romantic relationships. We don’t know if being sober helps her career or her friendships. We can guess she will get along better with her sister but that’s really it.
This movie is an awkward drag and has a limited view on addiction. However, on a positive note, I did find one instance of it helping someone with their own addiction. And hey, I’ll take one healed person as a win. I really will.
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When I first saw the title of your review I thought it was going to be the zombie movie! :) But alas, the movie I was thinking about was 28 Days Later and unfortunately too long (almost 2 hours) to meet your criteria! And just a slightly different plot. . .
I remember trying to watch 28 Days once on cable and gave up pretty quickly. But I enjoyed reading your review (as always).