Expected more

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

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 ****

I'm trying to figure out what people don't like about this movie. This is a really well done, reasonably accurate portrayal of an alcoholic that just needs to get set on the right recovery path and hopefully is one of the few who actually succeed. The acting and the cast are just plain great, the story is goodhearted, spiritual and honestly sends a really sensible and worthwhile message to the world. It's really clever and funny to boot. Sandra Bullock has made so many successful famous movies, maybe this one is just too nice, accurate and compassionate and got lost for lack of being sensational enough. I like several of the characters enough that I actually consider several of them iconic. They are so representative of people I have actually known it's almost scary. I LOVE this movie.

The only real good thing about this movie is Sandra Bullock. As a whole the film suffers from a too easy-going approach: the characters are too one-dimensional, the humor is lame, the flashbacks are cheap and repetitive and the story is presented in a rather simplistic and unrealistic manner. A film like this should pay much more attention to character development. Here, all the players live out their assigned shallow personalities. I don't know why they casted Mortensen for the sports guy character, he just doesn't deliver. The British accomplish of Bullock is too smooth and we know next to nothing about the roommate who story-wise makes such a big impact. Steve Buscemi is forgettable.The movie is entertaining enough however and never too predictable. As said, Bullock shines; she is perfectly cast for the role of uninhibited party animal struggling to confront the world and its residents. What else? Elizabeth Perkins. Yeah...

It may or may not be a decent piece of cinema, but it does raise some valid questions about alcoholism and drug abuse. It has its moments - just when you're ready to write it off as bull****, it comes up with something that draws you in. Bullock is a questionable choice for the main character - alcoholic party girl who will stop at nothing to destroy her life and her family's - but you have to give it to her, she does try. Perhaps she would have been better at it now, 11 years after the movie has been made; at that time she couldn't act more convincing. It's not a true movie about alcohol and drug abuse - it's too sugary and too easy. Still, if it's somehow able to keep anybody rethink their life choices, I say it was worth it.