40 Days and 40 Nights Review
by Eugene Novikov (lordeugene_98 AT yahoo DOT com)February 28th, 2002
40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
"How many days you think he'll last?"
"Days?"
Starring Josh Hartnett, Shannyn Sossamon, Vinessa Shaw, Paulo Costanzo, Adam Trese. Directed by Michael Lehmann. Rated R.
After American Pie, a comedy about a group of teenagers desperate to have sex by graduation, practically demolished the box-office and was followed by a similarly themed sequel that made even more money, it was only natural for Hollywood to come out with dozens of raucous imitation comedies about teenagers who wanted to have sex. And Hollywood did so. What few probably expected was a comedy where the object was not to have sex, yet that is exactly what we have with 40 Days and 40 Nights, a movie about twentysomethings that is clearly aimed at teenagers in the same way Pie was. If that movie was shallow, this one, surprisingly, is downright empty.
Matt Sullivan (Josh Hartnett) has some unresolved issues after breaking up with his long-time girlfriend Nicole. His problem is incredibly literal: whenever he has sex with another girl, he literally sees the ceiling crack and a void open up. Desperate, and under pressure from his horndog roommate, he comes up with a last-ditch solution: in a confessional with his brother the priest, he announces that he will give up sex, and everything sex-related, for the forty days of Lent.
Of course, he immediately meets an amazing girl in a laundromat: her name is Erica (Shannyn Sossamon), she works for an internet company, and she has no knowledge of the Vow. Meanwhile, his roommate and his co-workers open up an internet pool that accepts wagers (minumum: fifty dollars) on how long Matt will last, and everyone is desperate to make his day the Day. Then Nicole (Vinessa Shaw) returns, and things get really wicked.
I question the approach debut writer Rob Perez takes with this material. The main problem concerns the fact that the main character's vow is treated as something monumental, as if abstinence were an olympic event and Matt Sullivan was going for the gold. 40 Days and 40 Nights is even more single-minded than American Pie: everything is about sex, and the protagonist's vow to abstain isn't an exercise in admirable self-denial (if there is such a thing), but a strategy to have better sex. Fine, but I didn't really care about whether one Matt Sullivan had good sex, and the film gave me little else to focus on.
There are also issues with the central romance. I was anticipating, in horror, the scene in which Erica finds out about the online pool and spouts out some version of "I was a bet?!?" That scene did eventually arrive, and plays out in possibly the most cringeworthy way. Even more troublesome is the fact that Erica is inexplicably portrayed as a whiny, demanding bitch, complaining about every latest turn of events and having irritating should-I-or-shouldn't-I back-and-forths with her ditzy roommate during breaks in the action. So: the guy is shallow and self-serving, the girl is unpleasable and annoying. Clearly a match made in heaven, but insufferable to watch.
Hartnett is a good actor, though he does more with a smaller role in Black Hawk Down, and he is passable in a role that is hard to like. Sossamon, who made her debut with the terrific A Knight's Tale last year, isn't nearly as cute or charming as the script would have her be. Perhaps the most significant thing about the acting is that the characters are actually played by actors who are close to the ages specified in the script; Hartnett is 23 and Sossamon is 22 and Matt and Erica are in that ballpark. This is a promising change from seeing high-school sophomores played by actors over twenty.
40 Days and 40 Nights is raunchy, and graphic, and sometimes even funny, but its attitude makes it a difficult film to enjoy. It is filled with unlikeable characters doing stupid movie things, and the result betrays the promising concept. This is a sex comedy posing as an anti-sex comedy, but it doesn't convince as either one.
Grade: C-
Up Next: Brotherhood of the Wolf
©2002 Eugene Novikov
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