'28 Days': Tipsy-Turvy By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 14, 2000

Sandra Bullock is smashing as a party girl who tries to turn her life around. (Columbia-Tristar)

But we knew that anyway. She was delightful in "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway" and showed great potential in "The Net" and "While You Were Sleeping." The trouble is, her role has always been traditionally charming. She's always the ersatz Julia Roberts next door.

Well, she's the same thing again in "28 Days," a clean-and-sober movie about a party girl who can't stop drinking. I mean, the role calls for a household pussycat who'll take general audiences safely to the dark side and back.

But in "28 Days," written by the same person (Susannah Grant) who gifted Roberts with "Erin Brockovich," she's more than just a pretty space.

She's suitably obnoxious as a heedless drunk, then convincingly in-denial about addiction for most of the movie. Basically, she's realistic enough for a movie that's seeking a balance between lightheartedness and serious implications.

Screenwriter Grant and director Betty Thomas (who helmed "Dr. Dolittle" and Howard Stern's "Private Parts") are simply going for entertainment with just enough detail to let us know about the darkness of addiction. And Bullock fits in perfectly with that scheme.

Bullock plays Gwen Cummings, who's drunk around the clock in her lifelong bid to enjoy 24 hours of giggles a day. With her enabling British cohort, Jasper (Dominic West), she's busy destroying her life.

After yet another inebriated night with Jasper, she shows up late for her sister's wedding, drunk again and ready to parteeeeee. After falling backward into the wedding cake and making the nastiest toast of the ceremony to her horrified sister (Elizabeth Perkins), she gets into the car to find a bakery to replace that cake.

Unfortunately, someone's lawn jockey and front porch get in the way of her car. The judge gives her 28 days of rehab. She reports for duty at Serenity Glen where, already, a bunch of recovering weirdos are chanting self-help songs. She groans.

So did I, at first. What the world really needs, I thought, is a zany recovery movie starring the girl from "Speed." But while it's true the movie doesn't go deep at all – give or take a tumble or two from the wagon, and a fourth-quarter tragedy – it has a sort of knowing sense of fun.

During her month, Gwen goes through a familiar pattern: major denial and resistance to the program, sarcastic remarks about the people in the program and then slow but sure bonding with her fellow addicts, including heroin recoverer Andrea (Azura Skye), baseball player and rake Eddie (Viggo Mortensen), German male stripper Gerhardt (Alan Tudyk), divorced mother Roshanda (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and resident wit Oliver (Michael O'Malley).

Although much of the movie covers Gwen's serious relationship with her funereal roommate Andrea, and her doomed flirtation with Eddie, there's more than enough fun to go around.

Her counselor Cornell, played by a wonderfully restrained Steve Buscemi, is a stitch with his seen-everything demeanor. And Tudyk is a scream as Gerhardt, the German dancer trying to kick a cocaine addiction. He can't seem to speak before a support group without melting into tears, his lips trembling, his thick glasses steaming.

Like everyone else in this story, he's going through a private hell, but not enough to rock us out of our seats with horror. There's an unspoken deal here between moviemakers and audience: Humor will always sweeten the bad stuff. When a patient called Daniel (Reni Santoni) returns to Serenity Glen for more rehab, shortly after leaving the place in sober triumph, wise-cracker Oliver informs Gwen that only three out of 10 people stay out of rehab after graduation. Statistically, that makes Daniel's reentry cause for celebration, he points out. Oliver's chances of making it suddenly just got better.

"28 Days" may be fluff, but it's good fluff: effortless, amusing and almost touching.

28 DAYS (PG-13, 104 minutes) – Contains nudity and obscenity.