Student Essay on Film Review of "28 Days Later"

Film Review of "28 Days Later"

Summary:   The theme of alcohol and chemical dependency in the film, "28 Days Later." Plus, a description of the mental disorders discussed in the film.

The movie I chose to do was 28 Days. The movie begins with the main character Gwen and her boyfriend Jasper partying one night, and as a result of the partying, she oversleeps and is late getting to her sisters wedding. At the wedding she, once again, drank too much and crashes into the wedding cake while dancing with Jasper. In an attempt to right her wrong, she steals her sister's limo and tries to find a bakery. While driving inebriated she crashes into the front of a house.

As part of her sentencing she is sent to a rehabilitation facility. Initially, she is very reluctant and uninterested in participating in any of the therapy or contributing with group projects. She also temporarily leaves rehab with her boyfriend, gets drunk and returns to the facility, still impaired. After, almost breaking her leg by climbing out of a window to retrieve pills and facing jail time for breaking the rules, she completely changed her approach. She becomes involved and is willing to change. She sobers up, finishes her twenty-eight days in rehab, and begins to get her life back on the right track.

Gwen, played by Sandra Bullock, is diagnosed with alcohol and substance dependence. She is dependent on alcohol but also abuses prescription pills. At the beginning of the movie, she is getting drunk with her boyfriend, then the very next day she wakes up late for the wedding with a hangover and proceeds to drink more at her sisters wedding. This shows that her tolerance is very high since she is able to continually drink enough to get her drunk at least two days in a row. Then, after falling into the cake she proceeds to drive while intoxicated. And according to The Pocket Handbook of Clinical Psychology, alcohol abuse is diagnosed when alcohol is used in physically hazardous situations (driving). But, also according to this book, abuse differs from dependence in that it doesn't include tolerance, withdrawal, or compulsive use patterns. And this clearly defines Gwen. Within the first couple of days they no alcohol, and take away her pills. Without these two substances that she once depended on, she turns to smoking cigarettes, chewing gum and eating candy. After the first couple of days, she becomes very anxious and her hands become extremely shaky and she says that she cannot control them. Also, she becomes compulsive with creating a chain by folding gum wrappers together. It shows her starting it with her shaky hands, and then later on it shows the linked chain that has grown to about four feet long. These habits follow along with what the book describes as dependence.

The movie portrays that heredity plays a big role in Gwen's problem. Throughout the movie, she has flashbacks of her mom being intoxicated, and Gwen being subjected to and having to deal with it. As a little girl, she didn't see anything wrong with being intoxicated. The Pocket Handbook of Clinical Psychology states that close family members of alcoholics have a fourfold increased risk of also obtaining this dependency. It also states that there is a genetic theory about the cause of alcoholism, but a definitive cause remains unknown. In addition to alcohol dependency running in her genes, she also surrounds herself with the problem; both Jasper and her friends are partiers that spend most of their time drinking. So, by surrounding herself with all these negative influences they are just fueling the fire of her problem. The theory of it being heredity is one that holds very strong and very true. Her mother was an alcoholic that put both of her daughters lives and her own life in jeopardy, and made drinking a "fun" event. Eventually, the alcohol abuse took her mother's life. Alcoholism may be a gene that is passed from generation to generation, but just because it is part of a person's heredity does not make them dependent. Both their environment and personal decisions can affect this. So, by surrounding themselves with people who encourage drinking it is still the individual's choice to take the first drink, therefore the ability to become dependent is present. An example of this is her sister. She grew up in the same environment, with the same alcoholic mom, who died when they were young. As a result of that, she chose not to take the chances that Gwen took with alcohol. Her sister is the one that has a husband and a life that doesn't include blackouts and drunken stupors. So, I believe the heredity theory is correct, but it can be averted, the choice is left up to the person and whether or not they continue the trend.

A character in this movie that was not diagnosed, nor did they receive any treatment was Gwen's mother. She was showed in brief flashbacks of Gwen's memory, but her personality and problem was quite evident. Every time that she was shown she was drunk, and was continually drinking. She showed no responsibility for her two young daughters and completely disregarded their safety. She even went to the extent of taking the coffee table, turning it upside down and using it as a sled. The problem was that she was too drunk to notice that they were headed towards a street and the only thing that kept them from getting hit by a car was that they hit a snow bank. The sad part was that she thought it was funny and just laughed it off. Due to a lack of scenes with this character, she can't be diagnosed with dependency. She can only be diagnosed with alcoholism. According to The Pocket Handbook of Clinical Psychology, alcoholism indicates evidence of repeated impairments from alcohol in multiple areas of life functioning, despite which the person returns to drinking. This obviously holds true for the mother. Even after passing out in the middle of her kitchen floor and putting her daughters lives in jeopardy, she continually brought the bottle to her lips. The fact that she died as a result of drinking shows that she wasn't just a casual drinker, or even a binge drinker on the weekends, Due to the fact that she died at such a young age shows that she consistently drank and consumed massive amounts of alcohol. It is very probable that the cause of her disorder was heredity. Most likely, somewhere along her family line, there are more people that have a drinking problem, and it was passed down, and she became caught up in it. Another possibility is that she turned to drinking as a result of her husband leaving her and her children. Drinking alcohol could have been her coping mechanism to not feel the pain of him being gone. She also could have experienced other traumatic events that she wasn't able to deal with alone, and alcohol she felt was her only option.

The diagnostic did not have to be stretched. The actions that she took are very believable and hold true for someone that has a drinking problem. Even though to a person that is sober it may seem obsurd that she does the things she does, but to someone who is extremely drunk, it is all fun and games. The only thing that might have been a bit stretched was that nothing was done about her problem. It is hard to believe that being an only parent and constantly being drunk around young children that nobody would intervene. On the other hand, there are many instances that the family is unaware of the problem. If the family was unaware, the mom was denying that she had a problem, and she never had any public accidents, their would be no reason for her to receive, or be ordered to receive treatment.

A mental disorder is an illness with psychological or behavioral manifestations associated with significant distress and impaired functioning caused by a biological, social, psychological, genetic, physical, or chemical disturbance. In order to be diagnosed with a mental disorder a person must be evaluated. This process includes: asking the patient what is wrong, a full history of the presenting facts should be taken, then a general detailed medical examination with specific focus on the presenting symptoms should be carried out; the symptoms the patient presents or complains about are subjective reports. Then the physician carries out the medical examination to identify signs related to an illness, these findings are considered objective. The causes of mental disorders can be explained two ways: biologically and psychologically. There are four ways in which these two approaches are used to explain the development of mental disorders. First, is that when a person experiences a psychologically stressful event, their mental processes become disrupted. A normally functioning mind develops abnormally after experiencing this stressor. Second, is that physical stressors (such as genes or environment toxins) disrupts the development of the nervous system or damages a fully developed nervous system, which in turn causes abnormal mental events and/or behavior. Third, is a biological predisposition causes the development of abnormal mental events and/or behavior in the presence of environmental stressors. This is where a problem in the development of the nervous system occurs. Biological predisposition is not enough to cause development of a mental disorder, but if these people experience particular kinds of environmental stressors, they will develop a mental disorder. Fourth, explanation of mental disorders is psychological predisposition. With this a problem in the development of the mind occurs. Once again, this is not sufficient to cause the development of a mental disorder, but with added environmental stressors, a disorder will develop. Gwen falls into the biological predisposition. Genetically the gene is there, and her environment and events that occurred in her life led to it becoming a serious issue, and a mental disorder.

In the beginning, Gwen was in denial that she had a problem/disorder, that if she wanted to, she could quit at any time. This showed she was ignorant and unwilling to accept that she needed help. This is supported by the fact that even though she was in rehab for drinking, she proceeded to break the rules by leaving the facility to get drunk with Jasper. Also, when her sister came to aid in the therapy, Gwen was oblivious to and denied what she had done at the wedding. By the end of this movie, Gwen decides to take her life down a different path. Once she is released from rehab she remains sober and separates herself from the negative influences in her life. She breaks up with her fun-loving boyfriend and chooses to not party with her friends. She also considers and takes the advice of her counselors by approaching life in a different manner. Overall, I feel that Gwen dealt with her problem in a mature way. Once she hit the roadblock of realizing she did have a problem/disorder she decided to do things differently. She stopped blaming others for her actions and realized the pain and upset she had caused the ones she loved. She took responsibility for her actions, and chose to right her wrongs.