Keep it in your pants
A relatively intelligent antidote to the recent onslaught of immature sex comedies, 40 Days and 40 Nights gets a lot of laughs out of temporary abstinence and should be a favorite on the priest’s circuit.
After a bad break-up, Matt (Josh Hartnett), a San Francisco dot-com employee, is having problems with sex. He’s piling on the partners, and the steady flow of women is doing nothing to alleviate the pain of losing his girlfriend, Nicole (Vinessa Shaw). After a few hilarious visits to a priest (who happens to be his brother), Matt decides to give up sex for Lent—a stretch of 40 days without flesh-friction.
At this point, many of you might be thinking, “Screw the scriptwriter … I can do 40 days without sex standing on my head! I once went 40 months!” It’s best to view this film as the struggle of an individual suffering from major issues when it comes to genitalia control. The film works better as a single character study, and not as a general statement on human sexual behavior. Translation: This guy’s dick problems more than likely do not apply to you, so relax and be merry.
In addition to no sex with girls, Matt pledges to not spank, jerk, taunt, mangle, sauté, annoyingly harass or vacuum his weenie. No orgasms allowed, so that makes the vow a bit tougher, when you think about it. After his pledge is discovered by his nosy roommate (Paulo Costanzo), Matt’s vow of celibacy makes it to a Web site, where people are placing bets on the precise day when Matt blows it, literally. Some of the film’s best laughs come from his co-workers—especially the females, who take their best shots at getting him to wang-chung.
Making this all work far better than you would ever expect is director Michael Lehmann, who has crafted his best film since his 1989 debut, the classic dark comedy Heathers. While things get a bit carried away and cruel toward the film’s finale, not to mention that Matt arguably fails to keep his vow due to strange sexual activity involving orchids, Lehmann keeps the film moving forward at a jolly pace.
Hartnett, who continues to make up for that idiotic character he played in Pearl Harbor, wisely portrays Matt as a goofball. There’s no way his dilemma can be viewed as a real problem (the guy is surrounded by beautiful women who want to violate him), so the movie has fun in highlighting just how pathetic Matt and his type happen to be. We don’t care about his plight as much as we enjoy watching his silly ass suffer.
A strong supporting cast includes Shannyn Sossamon as Matt’s new love interest, ideal in every way, especially when it comes to strange sexual situations involving expensive flowers as mentioned before. Very funny are Costanzo as the dry-wit roommate and Griffin Dunne as Matt’s boss, who attempts a similar vow of celibacy in an effort to take sexual power from his wife, but winds up abusing himself in a bathroom stall.
Remarkably, the film maintains a relative state of good taste considering the subject matter. It even showcases a nice taste for the surreal, including a funny moment where religious statues of Jesus and Mary come to life and show their support for Matt’s quest and a trippy dream involving fluffy little breast-clouds.
In the end, 40 Days and 40 Nights winds up being something like High Fidelity meets American Pie, thankfully having more in common with the first. You might scoff at the premise, but a parade of good-looking temptresses and some damn funny dick jokes keep everything at fun party levels.