jimbo-53-186511 After a heavy session of alcohol and drugs the night before, hard-partying Gwen Cummings oversleeps the next morning and arrives late for her sister's wedding. Matters are made worse when Gwen continues drinking in the morning and ends up ruining her sister's wedding (by destroying the wedding cake - although she ruins the wedding in other ways as well). Determined to make amends, she steals a limo and heads off to get another wedding cake, but sadly, en route, she loses control of the car and crashes into a house. This results in Gwen being forced into rehab (in order to avoid jail) where she starts to re-evaluate her life....Before I begin with the negatives I will try and focus on some of the positives; for a start there is Sandra Bullock's performance. At times, as an actress, I have found her performances to be a tad annoying (although I usually forgive this as she's quite easy on the eye). But here she was actually very good (from the drunk party animal through the inevitable rehabilitation process). Dominic West also gives a larger than life performance and many of the scenes involving him are the ones that tend to stick in the mind. The scene where Gwen is trying to clean the toilets while hopping round on one leg was also quite amusing and I liked the scene where the patients recreated a scene from another patients favourite soap opera - it was funny and warm. However, outside of these things I'm struggling for anymore positives...What annoying me slightly about this film was how the majority of the patients were depicted and their progression within the facility; there seemed to be endless group therapy sessions with occasional solo interjections from the patients at random intervals, but these things never seemed to slot anywhere into the story and seemed to amount to very little. Aside from Gwen, no-one else really seemed to change much which for me meant that there was very little character/narrative progression. We also don't learn much about the majority of the patients (except for one who is a drug addict); I mean why are they in there? How long have they been in there? What progress have they made? You don't learn any of this and the result of all this is a rather shallow film that lacks any sort of realism. The lack of realism is further highlighted by the ex-patient at the end with the plant - I mean could you really imagine him being allowed to join the real world? Despite the fact that I found that scene amusing I think you'd have to be a bit naïve and simple to not see how phony it felt.There is quite a powerful scene involving one of the patients dying from a drug overdose, but aside from this scene I didn't feel that the film offered a particularly realistic insight into the treatment of rehab patients and felt that the director cut a lot of corners and substituted realism with a feel-good, safe and generally predictable narrative. It's watchable, but it's not a patch on some other mental institution films such as Dream Team or One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

SnoopyStyle Gwen Cummings (Sandra Bullock) is a mess. She crashes the limo ruining her sister Lily (Elizabeth Perkins)'s wedding reception. She's forced into rehab for 28 days. Her boyfriend Jasper (Dominic West) is an enabler and smuggle drugs into rehab. The treatment center is full of eccentric addicts run by Cornell (Steve Buscemi).The eccentrics have their moments. Parts of it is dark. It's tone gets uneven and changes a lot. The good part is Sandra Bullock. She has an innate charm and likability which makes all her craziness very cute. Her vulnerability seems raw and real. It's probably pretty accurate about rehab with an added splash of comedy. It's better and more serious than what's in the trailer.

orangeisthenewawesome I saw this movie on a lazy Saturday morning. I like Sandra Bullock, and the subject matter sounded interesting. I thought maybe I'd see Sandra in a meaty dramatic role - an alcoholic hits rock bottom and rebuilds her life.Instead what I saw was worse than a Lifetime movie of the week about alcoholism and rehab. The potentially powerful storyline just lacked scenes or dialogue that carried any gravity. It seemed as though the beginning of the movie where Sandra's Gwen was a thoughtless, disgusting alcoholic with no consideration for others was supposed to be some kind of slapstick humor. Oh look, what a goofball! She stole a car, drove drunk, and crashed into a house. Whoopsie! Rehab was a mish mash of clichéd characters and stereotypical behavior. A couple of things I did appreciate during the rehab scenes were (1) Sandra's performance regarding the physical withdrawal from substances, (2) the scenes when Sandra flashes back to her childhood and her mother's alcoholism, and (3) the touching, well acted scene between Gwen and her sister Lily at rehab. Other than that, the other patients at rehab were caricatures of typical addicts and were so silly it was offensive at times. Sandra gives a nice performance. Steve Buscemi is always great and he gives some gravity to his brief role. Other than that, it's not that good and I can't recommend it.

blondehrtbreakr This movie should have never been marketed as a comedy. I don't remember any jokes or funny scenes. Literally.When Gwen (Sandra Bullock), checks into rehab - she would have went through at least 3-4 days of hardcore withdrawal (in the film, she vomits once and appears to have 1 or 2 panic attacks that only last a few minutes). True detox will have you on the toilet, getting sick from both ends, for days and days, no letting up. Some rehabs will medicate you to ease some of the symptoms, but you still go through it. This movie simply did NOT show the real side of what happens to an alcoholic who suddenly stops drinking, or an addict who stops using. From that point on, I couldn't take the movie seriously. Perhaps, if they HAD shown the true side of withdrawal, before jumping into the actual rehab, it would have been more of a cautionary tale.