28 Days
![Updated by an Infoplease Editor on June 26, 2020](/themes/ip/images/info-circle.png)
Director: | Betty Thomas |
Writer: | Susannah Grant |
Columbia Pictures; PG-13; 110 minutes | |
Release: | 4/00 |
Cast: | Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortensen, Dominic West |
28 Days is a light drama about addiction and recovery. It sounds a little unbalanced because it is. Sandra Bullock stars as Gwen Cummings, a freewheeling Manhattan writer gripped by pills and booze. Her activities culminate in disaster that ruins a wedding and a car. The resulting court order puts Gwen in a monthlong detox program. As Gwen tries to pick up the pieces of her life in the rehab joint, a relationship blooms with Eddie (Viggo Mortensen). He's a pro baseball player sidelined by drink. Gwen's seductive former boyfriend (Dominic West) arrives and brings the threat of old habits with him.
The film is, at best, modestly effective. Bullock must be charming and injured, and she rises to the sentimentalized occasion. The film doesn't skirt away from the raw destruction of addiction and the ordeal of recovery, but neither does it dwell on these very real issues, preferring recovery buddy repartee.