Movie Review : 28 Days

Returning from a mind numbing number of meetings, the idea of being a couch potato for the rest of the evening (er...... this was 9.50 p.m) seemed extremely attractive, so I plonked myself in front of the T.V and by accident watched this very funny movie called 28 Days. I probably am the only idiot in the world who is writing a review of an ancient movie, but I really loved it.

Sandra Bullock is a writer-who has never written a word in her life-alcoholic-drug user. She and her boyfriend turn up completely high at her sister's wedding, whe she proposes this wonderful toast ``Everyone has to make some compromise in life. My sister made an intelligent one. She looked at Andrew and said is this a guy I want to spend the rest of my life with and came up with the answer Oh,why not! He is making pots of money. She is smart.'' (This is line which got me interested in the movie.) And then she wrecks the wedding cake, trips out of her bridesmaid's clothes, drives around in her underclothes in a drunken, hallucinative stupor and crashes into someone's house. And gets sent to a rehab centre. And gets rehabilitated.

The movie makes fun of all the stereotypes. Sandra Bullock's co-inmates at the rehab centre are a baseball star addicted to sleeping around with every woman he sees - including his best friend's ( since fourth grade) wife, a teenager hooked to drugs and a sleazy soap opera aka Santa Barbara, a stressed out alcoholic executive, a ageing beauty queen whose husband walked out on her, a black mother, a gay alcoholic who keeps crying all the time and losing his partners. The place is run by an ex-drunk. They poke fun at everything that happens there - the handholding, chanting sessions, group therapy, the focus on `expression' and what not. And under this is the pathos - all the others have been thru several rehabs and keep coming back . As the teenager puts it - faster and faster each time. And so she kills herself. The reality of life is there. But still it is a funny movie.

The movie has some great dialogues : like the sister's wedding toast and my personal favourite which is written below.
Scene : Sandra's boyfriend is proposing to her while she is at rehab.
``But Jasper, I am in rehab''
``Thatz because you got a nasty judge.''
``You know Jasper, I've been going downhill all my life.''
``Of course not. You are damn funny,especially when you get high. You are great.''
``Stop it,Jasper. I can see I have been on this path to kill myself and I didn't even know it.''
``Are you talking about the accident? it wasn't that serious''.
``There are so many normal people out there who don't drink, who don't wreck their sister's wedding, who don't land up in rehab and do chanting.''
``You are normal.''
``No, I'm not and it is dawning on me relentlessly''.
``Listen. When you become an adult, you stop being normal and this is true of all people. You wake up one day and have to figure out what to do with your life. Some get married and make babies, some get a job and make money and then there are some like us who have fun. All of us are adult and all of us are normal.'' I just loved that!

So even though Rotten Tomatoes rates it at 29%, I enjoyed that bit of dialogue too much and have to say, I loved it.