USA: SANDRA BULLOCK GOES FROM SUBSTANCE ABUSING PARTY GIRL TO REFORMED CITIZEN IN NEW FILM "28 DAYS".

Record ID: 390131

  • Title: USA: SANDRA BULLOCK GOES FROM SUBSTANCE ABUSING PARTY GIRL TO REFORMED CITIZEN IN NEW FILM "28 DAYS".
  • Date: 19th March 2000
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (MARCH 19, 2000) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) (SOUNDBITE) (English) SANDRA BULLOCK SAYING "If you've ever been to an AA meeting, or to re-hab for that matter, it's the only gift and outlet, the only crutch that you have, is your sense of humor. And after these people come out of the blackness, and they look at this amazing step that they'v
  • Embargoed: 3rd April 2000 13:00
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  • Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA AND VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA248JN0P5F9SQJCLM2W3J1Z266
  • Story Text: Sandra Bullock plays a woman who changes from substance-abusing party girl to scornful rehab cynic to sober reformed citizen in the new film "28 Days."
    Unofficially being labelled a "Lost Weekend Lite," "28 Days" focuses on Bullock as Gwen Cummings, a hip young woman slipping past the realm of self-control without realizing it.
    Live-for-tonight Greenwich Village scenester Gwen hits bottom when, under the influence of booze and pills, she ruins the formal wedding of her sister, Lily (Elizabeth Perkins,), finally commandeering the honeymoon limo and crashing it into a house.
    She is quickly shuttled off to Serenity Glen, a rural enclave where all chanting, hugging, hand-holding, soul-baring and singing of sappy songs is desinged to look ridicuouls fromm an outsider's point of view.
    Stuck with a teenage drug addict, Andrea (Azura Skye), as a roommate, Gwen chafes at some of the rules (no cell phones or caffeine), sits sullenly during group sessions, gets wasted with her dissolute but charming British boyfriend, Jasper (Dominic West), when he comes to visit armed with contraband goodies (and remarks with mock disappointment, "Where are all the celebrities?"), and generally adopts a holier-than-thou attitude toward her fellow addicts, who are at varying stages of recovery.
    Faced with jail or rehab, she takes the latter, but with a determination to avoid its rules and rituals to the fullest extent possible.
    Recognizing her denial game in a second is top counselor Cornell (Steve Buscemi), who not only has seen thousands like Gwen come and go but has been through the mill himself.
    Given pause by his threat to send her to jail if she doesn't shape up, Gwen begins to see the light when she injures herself climbing down a tree from her second-story window in pursuit of some pills she earlier threw to the ground.
    Fueled by a new determination, as well as by some flashback memories of her abusive, alcoholic mother who died when she was a girl, Gwen finally gets with the program and succeeds to the extent that she is able to refuse the champagne Jasper proffers on his next visit.
    The picture was filmed entirely on location in New York City and rural North Carolina.
    As research for the picture both star Bullock and director Betty Thomas spent time visiting re-hab clinics and sitting in on Alcoholic's Anonymous meetings.For both, it was important that the humorous aspects of the situation be shown realistically."It's the only gift and outlet, the only crutch that you have, is your sense of humor," says Bullock."I saw how much humor there was in those meeting and it really strengthened my approach to the film," concurs Thomas, whose work after a long stint as an actor on the television programme "Hill Street Blues" has included a string of broadly comic motion pictures.
    Bullock's research into her role led her to a realization about addiction's ability to effect all of society."Everybody there was your neighbor, your grandmother, your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your child," she notes."It wasn't the rock star or the movie star or the model, so it was pretty revealing," she added.
    Bullock was also able to draw upon relationships with people who have battled addiction."I have friends who are in the program, enough in my life that I could take and relate to," says Bullock, revealingly."So I had to painfully look at myself and go, okay."
    "28 Days" opens in theatres on April 14.
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