Alexis Papageorgiou Pretty interesting, albeit not original, theme and with some very good performances one would've expected this movie to be at least good. Doesn't even come close to that in my opinion because the most important pylon simply isn't there ... The protagonist (Bullock) gets admitted into a rehabilitation facility in order to overcome her extremely serious addiction to alcohol, and drugs? Prior to her admittance she even crashed her sisters wedding and insulted everyone, and then she almost died after stealing and crushing a limousine. So far so good but as soon as she gets admitted all her addiction issues simply cannot be viewed by the audience, or at least I was unable to spot a single instance during all those weeks of supposedly painful recovery, of her urge to succumb to that powerful feeling this film is supposedly dealing with ...The images are beautiful since the facility is located in an idyllic forest location and the acting is pretty good, but there is no story to be told really ... On the contrary I found it a little bit insulting towards those people who actually go though something of the same order and have to watch Sandra overcome the same problems they go through without sweating and on top of everything, she becomes a coach figure of sorts for other patients. Ironically two other patients relapse and at least add some seriousness into the endeavor.

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.

juneebuggy Sandra Bullock is Gwen Cummings, a writer with a cute British boyfriend (Dominic West) who seems to be having a great time with life. Arriving late for her sisters wedding she proceeds to get exceptionally smashed, steal a limo and crash into a house while in her underwear and out searching for a cake to replace the one she destroyed. You get the feeling that this isn't a day that's too far out of the ordinary for her. Gwen gets herself a DUI and 28 days in court-ordered rehab or jail time.At first Gwen refuses to confirm to the rules of rehab, much less admit she might actually have a problem. Its only after she breaks her leg trying to escape and slows down enough to listen, participate in group and get to know some of the fellow patients that change occurs.Bullock is always an easy watch, and she does a great job here, helped along by an assortment of interesting fellow re-habbers including Viggo Mortensen, Steve Buscemi, Alan Tudyk and Margo Martindale.Despite the rehab facility coming across a bit like summer camp there is a serious and sad undertone here exposed in flashbacks to Gwen's chaotic childhood with her alcoholic mother - I really enjoyed that aspect but for the most part this is a comedy.I've seen this a few times over the years, its one of those movies that I find myself watching whenever I catch it on TV. 3/28/16

moonspinner55 Newspaper writer somehow has the time and energy between assignments to be a booze-swilling, pill-popping, sexually loose ne'er-do-well who is an embarrassment to her prim and proper sister; she enters rehab as an alternative to jail after hijacking a limousine drunk and driving it into someone's house. Lousy star-vehicle for Sandra Bullock, one loaded down with pop tunes to fill the gaps and an initially condescending view of rehabilitation patients as touchy-feely morons prone to singing and easy crying. Director Betty Thomas wants to have it both ways: to cynically view the 12-step system through Sandra's eyes and also show that the system works in order to better Bullock's character. The film is a laughless morass ultimately tailed to its star (designed to show off her many sides, her sass and pathos, etc.), but Sandra Bullock as an actress runs hot and cold. I admired her star-making performance in "Speed", and she was too cute for words in "While You Were Sleeping", but she cannot carry a would-be weighty character study like this alone--and neither Thomas nor screenwriter Susannah Grant provides her with any help. Elizabeth Perkins plays Bullock's sister with a pinched mouth and a glare of disapproval, to show us how pity can evolve into hatred; however, this is hardly a person for Bullock's character to aspire to be. Perkins looks as bad off as her sibling, but with the caveat that she's been groomed with money. * from ****