28 Days

I borrowed this because it was a Viggo Mortensen one I had missed. But he was barely in it. He is known for doing cameo roles in which he appears intensely for a short while and disappears, which I think would have been better for me as I could have skipped the rest of the film. He didn't appear until about a third of the way through the film and was only marginally seen in the rest of it. His character was good and well acted but could have been better developed - he just seemed to be oversexed and not much good for anything with no sign of improvement really. The character Gwen ( Sandra Bullock,) was supposed to be a writer but apart from a poor bit at the end showed no evidence of this at all. It was also a bit weird that she got the blame for incidents at her sisters wedding which really were due to her boyfriend throwing her around and not her actual work, yet he remained at large as it were. He did seem very sincere, but Gwen seemed to have no feelings for him, in fact she seemed very shallow all through and I couldn't sympathise with her at all. Some of the activities seemed plain daft. I could not see how anyone could expect someone with a broken leg to hobble on crutches cleaning toilets nor be expected to do climbing - dangerous and irresponsible and I do not believe any organisation would be so stupid to do that to their patients. Some of the dialogue, being American, I could not actually make out, it was too drawled, but it was drivel anyway mostly. It also seemed senseless to ban drugs, alcohol and caffeineated coffee yet allow them to smoke, a far worse drug, and fill up on loads of sweets which is far more likely to be mood changing that coffee! Also denying someone painkillers with a broken leg was ridiculous because they could easily be restricted to being given a regular dose only by the doctor.

The hugging and bonding and chanting and so on did make me cringe - that would be the worst torment getting to mix with strangers and having to touch them - yuk - it seemed a stupid way of getting people better - in fact the only two to leave before Gwen did failed miserably so it didn't seem that their ideas worked at all - so what was the point? All it did for Gwen was make her harder and colder when she left so she ditched the boyfriend who had stood by her the whole time and even romantically asked her to marry him while they were on a boat in the middle of a beautiful lake - all she could say was why now in re-hab! I also found it really strange that her childhood self appeared to be represented by a boy. I looked back at those scenes and still could not see a little girl. OKish on a dull afternoon when you are recovering from a cold but otherwise, don't bother.

Thought this film was really good, the characters became close to one another and i got more fond of them as the film went on the acting was good, there was a point to this film lots of morals with a pick me up factor near the end, though you do have to shed some tears to get there. Thought the ending was too quick i didn't want the credits to roll when they did, I would have liked to have seen what she did in her happier life. There were definitely some comical moments and lines though at times the film felt a little slow but i still wanted to see what would happen so it did keep my attention. A good drama that does make you abit depressed especially if you have been through a similar situation and can relate to the characters, but as the film goes on it does start to make you feel good when she gets her life back on track.