Film Review - 28 Days Later

When Jim wakes from a four-week coma he quickly makes a horrifying discovery: His electricity has been disconnected. Having seemingly ignored his final reminder, Npower have cut the power meaning Jim’s home full of electrical gadgets is effectively transformed into a junk yard. But that’s not all.

In the 28 days that he has been unconscious, Jim’s hair and nails have continued to grow and he must confront his own image in the mirror in order to rectify this. His house plants have withered and died and he has missed four consecutive pub quizzes at his local.

This is essentially one man’s struggle to make up for lost time. The film tells us to savour every minute we have and make the most of our waking hours as you never know when you might fall into a coma for exactly four weeks. It could labour this point by over dramatising proceedings, but it is in the mundane quality of Jim’s tasks that the message rings true. He’s missed an appointment with a mortgage advisor: ‘That could be me’, you think. The bin in his kitchen has started to smell: ‘That could be my bin’, you think.

In giving the film an everyday feel, the director, Morph, has ‘kept it real’ to use the parlance of our times and there is a greater impact as a result.