Review of 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002) by Darla S — 17 May 2008

I avoided this one when it was in the theaters--and this was when we went to the movies on average at least once a week. Ah... gotta love living in a city. And theaters with military discounts. But somebody recently recommended this (I can't remember who, and it's probably a good thing), so I put it in my Netflix queue.

Unless you were living under a rock 4 years ago, you know that the plot involves the main character foregoing sex of any sort, including masturbation, for Lent.

And actually, the set-up was pretty good. Matt (Josh Hartnett) is having trouble getting over a break-up, and a string of one-night stands isn't helping, so expanding on advice from his seminarian brother, he decides to give up sex for the 40 days and 40 nights of Lent.

And then he makes the mistake of telling his friend. Which leads to an internet pool on whether he can make it the entire 40 days, all the expected jokes, and a variety of temptations thrown at him with increasing desperation. At least they put the betting in there to give his friends and co-workers a reason to be so concerned about his sex life, or lack of one.

He meets a girl at a laundromat, and there's the beginning of a nice, quirky romance. Then she finds out about the vow. And the movie crashed and burned. They've known each other for maybe two weeks at most, and she's violently angry that he's abstaining from sex. Good lord, woman, get a vibrator. It's only a couple more weeks, anyway, but apparently if she can't have sex with him, she wants nothing to do with him.

As for her assertion that he should have told her about it--they've just started dating. I'm sure she hadn't spilled her guts about everything in her life, either.

Then there's the back and forth (she loves him, she loves him not, and it's always the same argument--she can't wait until the 40 days are up for sex), and the ex-girlfriend shows up and wants that forbidden fruit.

And the ending! O. M. G. If it had been a book, I'd've thrown it against the wall. If it had been my own movie, I'd have thrown it against the wall.

So basically, it was a good concept, poorly executed.