40 Days and 40 Nights
dir. Michael Lehmann
Miramax Pictures
Matt Sullivan, a young San Francisco Web designer, is on the rebound from long-term girlfriend.
Casual sex leaves him confounded and prone to paranoid visions. His only hope is a complete sex-fast for Lent,
some kind of physically purifying trial that will do … something. It worked for Jesus, he reasons.
40 Days and 40 Nights should be a sassy, sexy vehicle for star John Hartnett.
Unfortunately, director Michael Lehmann (who made Heathers oh so long ago) and writer Robert Perez
never decide what is funny about not having sex — besides the fact that other people mock you if they
know about it. Short on wit, 40 Days settles for an up-and-down plot that spends a lot of time in
the realm of sex and dating a la "The Man Show" and MTV's "Dismissed."
Some of the 40 days are almost as funny as promised, but time elapses with dwindling hopes for
originality.
Day 1
Plant the obvious: Erica, mysterious, ironic girl at Laundromat. You can see there's something
different about this girl, in that completely predictable way. We are made to see her depth because
she cares about defining unfamiliar words in magazines. Poor Shannyn Sossaman works
hard to overcome her script. She's the only female in the film allowed to have any semblance of emotion
associated with sex, but why so humorless? Luckily, the chemistry between the romantic leads feels
real.
Every other day
Work the religious angle. Matt's big brother, training to be a priest, offers his
confessional and exceptionally bland advice about abstinence. The Catholic guilt/Lent thing is a big
yawn.
Day 4
Work the dot-com angle. Impish co-workers develop a website for The Vow, complete with online
betting and ad support from a porn site. Oh no! Matt loses his privacy and becomes a pawn to be
Googled mercilessly by strangers. And can you guess who sees the site?
Days 7-13
Work the office humor to death, even though the supporting characters aren't fit for a
self-respecting beer commercial.
The torment escalates as everyone plots to win the jack-off jackpot.
Matt resists these indecent proposals.
Hartnett has a certain way of looking squinty and flushed that's not exactly funny, but still
endearing. He looks a little bit like a young Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman, determined
to earn his wings before he reclaims his brown-eyed girl. We know Matt's inner self is being forged
into a stronger, purer substance because he begins to channel his sexual energy by crafting a
diorama. (Sadly, this is not a joke at all.)
Days 14-20
Begin to flirt with notions about sexual power in a fuzzy kind of way, to cover the issue
without giving Camille Paglia anything to sink her teeth into. Two of Matt's female colleagues inform
him that he's screwing up the power system — the one where the women have the power because they
can say "no." They have no choice but to offer him a storage room menage a trois. Meanwhile, other men
begin to adopt The Vow as a pick-up tool. But sexual politics is a subject best put aside,
because this movie has nothing remotely interesting to add.
Not too much later
Matt and Erica find a way to (not quite) do it. Think Georgia O'Keefe meets 9 1/2
Weeks. Will abstinence find its reward?
The next day
Reverse course on earnestness. Penis jokes. Boob dreams.
Day 39
Twist. Ugh. The final moments are unexpectedly macabre. The rest of the movie leads viewers to expect
something this stupid, but not quite so dark. Is it a remnant of a more subversive comedy that might have
been, or the crowning moment of bad taste? All of a sudden the question of sexual politics is
relevant again. Is it OK for a woman to have sex with a man against his will?
Even though the movie shows what celibacy has come to mean
to Matt, the film jumps right to the morning after the morning after (which is essentially the same
place he would have been 38 days ago, if he had just kissed the girl on Day 1).
Day 40-something
What a waste of time. But at least he has a fine diorama to show for it.
— Megan Christensen (mmc3e4 at mizzou dot edu)
