Four Good Days __EXCLUSIVE__
A year after last seeing her, 31-year-old drug addict Margaret "Molly" Wheeler walks to her mother Deb's house remembering times before her fall. She insists that she is ready to be sober and begs her mother to allow her to stay for a few days before going to detox. Deb, although clearly ambivalent about the matter, stands resolute with the support of her husband Chris, fearing that aiding Molly in any way will serve as being an enabler. Molly spends the night outside her mother's house and is persistent about her recovery. The next morning a frustrated Deb agrees to take Molly to detox. Upon arrival, it is revealed that Molly has been an addict for over a decade, has lost custody of her children, and is on her 15th attempt at sobriety. Four days after commencing detox, she is offered an opioid antagonist in order to help her on the road to sobriety. However, she must stay off any drugs for an additional four days before it is safe for her to receive the first shot, and then expect an additional shot each month.
Four Good Days
Molly speaks to Coach Miller's class on her third day at home. While speaking to the class, she releases her emotions, is blatant and transparent with the children about her situation and experiences, using the moment to vent. This causes Deb to openly express her optimism and hopes that this time, Molly will finally recover. Afterwards, Molly asks that Deb take her to see Sammy, a friend and fellow addict. There, Deb has a chance encounter with Molly's ex-boyfriend Eric, who inadvertently reveals that Molly had been pregnant. Molly later confesses to Deb that she was pregnant, but gave the baby up for adoption. That evening, Molly receives a phone call from the detox center and learns that due to issues with her health insurance, she cannot get the shot until Monday, adding an additional three days to her wait and thus the fight against her urges. A suspicious Deb questions the call, they argue, and Molly leaves with Sean.
The additional days become excruciating for Deb as she attempts to contact Molly incessantly to no avail. On Monday morning, Molly arrives at the house urging Deb to get ready so they will not miss her appointment at the detox facility. However, before they leave Molly asks Deb for her urine, confirming Deb's suspicions. Molly further admits that she has relapsed. Despite this, she is adamant that she does wish to get sober, and Deb provides her urine. At the center Molly receives the opioid antagonist shot, but due to her having drugs in her system, she goes into acute withdrawal, and they rush to the hospital.
The film is Four Good Days, which stars Close as Deb and Mila Kunis as her heroin-addicted daughter, Molly. After her latest detox, Molly finds a hope at sobriety in an opioid antagonist -- which would curb her craving and prevent her from getting high -- but she must not get high for the four days before the injection. So, she turns to her mother to help fight her demons, and despite a decade of grief, betrayal and trauma, Deb agrees.
Four Good Days' take on addiction and recovery seems way too realistic, which makes it hard not to wonder if it is based on a true story. In its runtime of an hour and a half, Four Good Days walks viewers through the harrowing four-day journey of a young addict who attempts to stay clean while living with her mother. The movie's taut storyline is powered by incredible performances from Mila Kunis and Glenn Close, who play the mother-daughter duo, Molly and Deb.
As a part of her recovery, she had to detox her system from heroin before receiving a dose of a medicine called naltrexone, which reduces the feeling of euphoria associated with opioid abuse and helps with recovery. However, like Molly from Four Good Days, Amanda relapsed before she could get her first shot of the medicine. Amanda's relapse came after staying clean for several days and, as a result, she went into withdrawal when she got her first dose of the opioid antagonist.
CARDIFF, Wales -- The Ukrainian dream of a World Cup appearance ended on a cold Sunday night in an unrelenting rainstorm. Head coach Oleksandr Petrakov stared out through the downpour and didn't know what to do. A red flare landed on the pitch, and the air smelled like gunpowder. Smoke swirled up into gray sky. The stadium shook with noise. Petrakov turned to walk off the pitch, then he reversed and stood alone and watched the Wales team celebrate. He looked lost. His team had come so close. It had missed so many chances in the 1-0 loss, and it was hard to even remember the hope and promise that had burned bright the past four days. Nobody spoke in the dressing room.
Petrakov said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been to the front lines and personally asked the soldiers there to write messages of support on a flag and that the team brought that flag with it to Wales. The team members knew who was supporting them and why, and that hurt. His players wore their pain on their faces, carried this loss deep in wounds that might never heal, and he said the failure was his and not theirs. A nation needed a win, needed one good thing as a down payment on a future filled with good things. He tried to find the right words. He apologized in his news conference to his fellow citizens for not scoring. He grimaced and paused, swallowed and paused, and smiled thinly and stared blankly at the wall. It was hard to watch. He felt the possibilities of the coming six months slip through his fingers. Everyone did. A Ukrainian journalist used his postmatch question to plead with the international reporters listening to not forget what is occurring in their homeland.
When the Russian military started hitting Kyiv on Feb. 24, he refused to leave. His children begged. He told them he was born in Kyiv and he'd die in Kyiv before he let anyone steal his home. In the first days of the fighting, he went down to try to enlist in the army. The recruiter told him they didn't need 64-year-old soldiers and that the way he could serve their country was to do what he'd trained his whole life to do. They told him he didn't know anything about fighting but that he knew about football.
Petrakov's daughter is still in the city. So is his wife. They talk to him regularly, and the only way he can help them is by coaching. His team is his only weapon, the only way he can help his country, and for the past four days, he believed that team would beat Wales and take the Ukrainian flag and anthem to Qatar for the World Cup. That he would fulfill the mission given to him by the soldiers who kindly told him he was too old to pick up a rifle and man a post.
The war is just over 100 days old. In those three-plus months, there has been reason for hope. The Ukrainian army exposed the Russians, using stockpiles of foreign weapons to win the battle of Kyiv and to push the Russians back across the border in places. But the situation in the east has devolved, with the Russian army lobbing artillery rounds into helpless positions, the fighting happening in trenches -- the whole thing brutal and archaic, more like Antietam than Baghdad. The Russians control about 20% of the country, and this war could go on for a long time. It's already been going on since 2014, Ukrainians like to remind foreigners who think this whole thing is brand-new.
For those reasons, and so many others, the past four days felt good. It takes a lot of people to win a war, to create the right mix of defiance and determination -- and Oleksandr Petrakov has been one of those people. He gave a nation four good days, its own kind of miracle during such terrible times, and he wanted to give it more.
Ukraine missed chance after chance. Petrakov had to be separated from one of Wales' players over a stalling issue. He roared into the rain at his team. Everyone was soaked. The game turned fierce, and the crowd was on edge, with both sides singing and cheering and complaining about the officials. The section of Ukrainians chanted the name of their country in four syllables over and over. Both teams wanted this victory. Their desire was palpable to the people in the stands, who seemed to understand they were watching one of the most intense days of football they'd ever see.
Amanda had decided to pursue a new treatment for heroin, a monthly injection of naltrexone that blocks the effects of opiates on the brain - getting high becomes impossible. However, the injection could be dangerous if she still had opiates in her system. She'd been told to stay clean for for at least two weeks, which she was when moving in with her mother, and her appointment for the injection was four days away - the basis for the film's name. The film follows what happened to Amanda in that time, and what her mother did to help.
FOUR GOOD DAYS, based on a Washington Post feature article, follows Molly (Mila Kunis), a woman in her early 30s who's addicted to heroin and meth and begs her mother, Deb (Glenn Close), for help -- for the 14th time -- to get clean. Gaunt and just coming off a high, Molly tries to guilt-trip Deb, but her mom has heard everything before and says she can't see Molly until she's clean. After Molly spends the night outside her childhood home, Deb drives her to an emergency rehab shelter that Medicaid only covers for three nights. On the fourth day, Deb takes Molly to a doctor who believes that Molly is a good candidate for a monthly injection of naltrexone, which blocks opiate receptors in the brain -- but only if she can remain drug free for four more days under the supervision of a non-user. Deb, whose second husband, Chris (Stephen Root), is quiet but skeptical about the situation, reluctantly agrees to bring Molly home with her. Dopesick and depressed, Molly craves drugs every moment, but each day seems to get a little better. She even reunites with the two elementary school-age children she'd lost custody of while using. Cautiously optimistic, Deb hopes that this is the time Molly can finally stay clean.
This is a predictable but powerful drama based on the true story of a mother and daughter struggling to navigate the struggles of addiction, recovery, and forgiveness. Comedy veteran Kunis might not be everyone's first instinct to play the role of an addict trying yet again to get clean, but she's convincing in the part. She's often praised for her beauty, but here that's all covered up by scars, pockmarks, and decaying teeth. She's also believably gaunt. What's not surprising is that Close is every bit as good as you'd expect as Deb, Molly's put-upon and heartbroken mother who wants to help despite remaining wary of her daughter's chances of staying clean. 041b061a72
