Resonance and reductions with sodium borohydride
Sodium borohydride is definitely strong enough to reduce an acetophenone derivative. It is likely that the resonance stabilization does reduce the reactivity of the ketone. It's not often that a sodium borohydride reduction requires 35 hours. In the cases that I have run, usually less than one hour is sufficient.

I did some quick searching of whether an isolated ketone could be reduced in the presence of an acetophenone, and I did not find an adequate example of a case where only the isolated ketone was reduced. That says to me that the reactivity difference is not that great. Perhaps someone else has come across this though.