40 Days And 40 Nights

40 Days And 40 Nights

A guy heartbroken over his former girlfriend who’s now getting married to another guy finds solace as he hears that the period of Lent is around the corner and he has to abstain from not just physical relations, but also any sexual thoughts or interaction for the whole 40 days. Before long, however, the word is all over the place and all the girls are betting on whether the boy will hold out and all the boys are trying to get the girl to get him to give in. Good times.

One of the charms about the Hollywood cinema is how rarely self-claimed original movies come with an L.A. title. Hence, it is only polite to tell the filmmakers a standing ovation when they manage to present something without ‘a sequel’ in its name or any sort of ‘plugged script’ so that two superstars can have a cameo and make lots of money together or one that sort of resembles a good old television series with the two words that I loved (stress on loved!!!) The most that can be stated about this picture is that it is something that has definitely never been done a million times before.

Well, it’s new, it’s fresh and it has an engaging theme. Well… it’s about some guy who refrains from jacking off or having sex for a span of 40 days. Nice concept right? But when a basic premise like that is presented, there are naturally fears of this movie becoming a single punchline movie. With that said, yes, the movie does focus on one man’s struggle for most of the screen time, but there is further interesting stuff going on too.

Just like in SWINGERS, the protagonist of this film is also getting over his ex, something that’s always refreshing to chase in any film (thought there’s a good part of the cadre who would probably get it over this). New love is of course made a possibility in this film as well as plenty of wisecracking supporting characters adding some measure of character where they will wager on anything that can be wagered and even some T&A and erections are thrown in there too. Now that’s quite a film!

What is indeed going to keep a film like this going is going to be the lead actor and if anyone opposes that well then good luck the actor has been handed an unenviable role of being eunuch man! The man in this instance is Josh Hartnett and he has done it very well. He is friendly to the audience, witty, appealing and sexy (huh???) and surely is a man to whom the women adore and also the men dig as well. He shares some decent chemistry with the lady who seems to catch his eye Shannyn Sossamon, although I didn’t ultimately buy the idea that they fell for each other rather quickly, but then again. it could just be my natural skepticism.

I must emphasize how much I appreciated his roommate and his sense of humor on a regular basis as well as all the ooh! I mean all the women who were dressed lightly for sex in his office all women who work in Internet companies wear skirts over their catholic schooling, LOL, great stuff! wait, I’m going next week to hire!).

The few negatives in the film include a cliched subplot concerning Hartnett’s brother who is a priest, an awful scene with his parents discussing some of the sexual positions in front of their children, which they should never be allowed to do come on peopl!. On that last point, it was really this film does not command one attention because we are meant to feel that Josh is sexually obsessive about this girl but then she is irritating. I have no idea. No idea why they made her that way (although she was a real stunner accompanied by most of the girls in this film), but still).

Related to this context and with my juggling around – let me also tip my hat to the filmmakers for not dodging the bluer elements in this film (rated “R”, baby!). We’ve got nudity, we’ve got hard-ons, we’ve got masturbation, we’ve got sex, we’ve got lots of things, especially one of my favorites that needs to be experienced to be properly processed, an ocean of tits.

Thank you, Miramax, for not going all “Disney” on us. Overall, director Michael Lehmann comes out as someone who wanted to have fun making a film out of this one, and why not, with a lot of surreal and imagination scenes that were used in between reality, some entertaining music, and I for one, liked it on that level. There is also some irony in what I am watching in this production because, my brother and I wrote once a script treatment revolving around a man who had constipation but there’s no toilet to do his business, and he never seems to get around to doing it, till the film’s closing scene. We used to chuckle at all the different scenarios we could come up with until we were undermined by the fact that it was comical to think that a production like that would ever actually work or command respect.

Well, here’s a film on a man who devotes the entire movie not to have any form of sexual contact- and it works! As for me, a man who is being subjected to the same kind of dilemma that our hero goes through in the story well, according to this film, I need to stop consuming pornography, I need to control my nonsense and I absolutely need to do my house chores! In other words the life of hell does not change a bit.

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