40 Days and 40 Nights film review

certificate_15

40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS

For most men, going 40 days without sex might not seem too hard (fnarr, fnarr), but then most men don't look like Josh Hartnett and find themselves continually fending off the advances of beautiful women. This self imposed abstinence provides the basis for 40 Days And 40 Nights, a film that sticks (if you know what I mean) rigidly (sorry, I just can't help it) to its task of trying to squeeze (enough already) as much humour out of one man's sexual frustration as is humanly possible. The trouble is, the endless masturbatory jokes soon wear thin and beyond that there's little else in this lightweight bawdy comedy.

The film attempts to establish that relationships founded on sex are less fulfilling than those established on a deeper level. "Everything is so much simpler when there's no sex involved", claims Matt (Josh Hartnett). But in the same way that the makers of Shallow Hal spent the whole film ridiculing fat people under the guise of championing their cause, so 40 Days And 40 Nights manages to include an awful lot of sex for a film that's supposedly about not having sex. The sophomoric humour is on a par with films like American Pie, making it appear a strange choice in light of his more serious aspirations in Black Hawk Down for Hartnett, who strays perilously close to looking embarrassed at times.

Matt Sullivan is a designer at a San Francisco dot com company who shares an apartment with his work colleague Ryan (Paul Costanzo). In an effort to get over the recent split with his beloved Nicole (Vinessa Shaw), Matt embarks on a series of one-night stands. But as each encounter is disrupted by the recurring vision of the ceiling cracking and his being swallowed by a huge black hole, Matt begins to fear for his sanity. He consults his brother John (Adam Trese), a novice priest who warns him, "You have to deal with your emotions and stop screwing around". Matt takes the advice literally, hoping a vow of celibacy (including no touching, no fondling and no self-gratification), for the duration of lent, will finally exorcise the spectre of Nicole that haunts him.