Sandra Bullock is Gwen Cummings an alcoholic and a
drug addict who seems to have a habit of ruining her life. The film starts with
Gwen’s late arrival at her sisters wedding where she is a bridesmaid. Dressed in
black underwear under a pale pink dress she makes a great first impression and an even
better second impression when she falls over drunken on the dance floor, quickly
progressing to falling on the cake and destroying it.
She jumps in the nearest car (the wedding limo) and heads off to get a new cake, ending
up driving the limmo into the front of someone house.
It is plainly obvious that Gwen has some serious problems so she is sentence to 28 days
in Rehab or Jail. Naturally Gwen chooses rehab.
Rehab quickly becomes what Gwen sees as a bad choice and, she is disillusioned by
chanting and not being able to even have real coffee. It takes a week or so and a feeble
attempt to smuggle in some drugs before she realises that she has a serious problem.
The bulk of the film addresses Gwen’s ability to deal with her addictions and the
way she relates to others at rehab.
VIDEO
The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is exceptional. Images were
brilliantly sharp and clear at all times.
Shadow detail was also fantastic and there was no loss of detail at any stage. Even
during outdoor night scenes everything was still clearly visible.
The colour pallette was beautifully rich, deep dark blacks right through to brilliant
bright whiets and every colour in between with a saturation that gave brightness but never
and hard core oversaturation.
There were no mpeg artefacts, ailiasing or shimmering. Only some very small and few
film artefacts were noticed.
A fantastic transfer in all!
AUDIO
the Dolby 5.1 audio track is also fantastic. Dialogue is always sharp and
clear. Keeping in mind this is a dialogue driven film the surround channels were used well
to keep the film alive. While there are no impressive sound effects they were used to
effect and to enhance the musical score.
The bass channel was used occasionally and when needed. It was never intrusive in the
audio.
The Score from Richard Gibbs is excellent and very easy to listen to. It doesn’t
make a huge impact on the film, but it certainly enhances the on screen action.
EXTRAS
Dolby Digital City Trailer
Theatrical Trailer
Audio Commentary: Betty Thomas, Jenno Topping, Peter Teshner, Richard Gibbs.
The commentary is recorded over the films audio track so you can easily follow the film
in the background. This isn’t a fabulous commentary by any means but the comments are
informal and contain quite a bit of interesting info about the film.
Featurette: Santa Cruz:A great take off of some of the U.S. corny daytime soapies.
Notes: How to make a Gum Wrapper Chain: very cool... I’m going to try this one
day.
Featurette: Making of: 15 minutes of behind the scenes footage and promotional bits and
pieces for the film. Quite good really but still lacking in the area of "the making
of".
Deleted Scenes: 3 Character Testimonies
Talent Profiles: Cast and crew
Deleted scenes: Guitar Guy’s lost songs. 2 of the Guitar Guys Songs not included
in the final release unfortunately since they aren’t too bad.
Isolated Music Score: Very soothing for background music.
Overall
I quite liked this film. It seems the more I see of Sandra Bullock the more I like her
style. Rent this one and see of you like it then go out and buy it.
... 
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