40 Days and 40 Nights

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40 Days and 40 Nights
Movie poster of 40 Days and 40 Nights, the text set in a phallic like column extending from Hartnett's crotch.
Directed by	Michael Lehmann
Produced by	Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Michael London
Written by	Rob Perez
Starring	Josh Hartnett Shannyn Sossamon
Distributed by	Miramax Films (USA) Alliance Atlantis (Canada) Universal Pictures (non-USA/Canada)
Release date(s)	1 March 2002
Running time	96 min
Language	English
Budget	$17,000,000 USD (est.)
IMDb profile

40 Days and 40 Nights is a comedy film that was directed by Michael Lehmann and written by Rob Perez in 2002. The film depicts the life of Matt Sullivan, played by Josh Hartnett, who abstains from any sexual contact for the duration of the Christian season of Lent.

Tagline: One man is about to do the unthinkable. No sex. Whatsoever. For... 40 Days and 40 Nights.

1 Plot
2 Criticism
3 Cast
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Matt (Josh Hartnett) is obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, Nicole (Vinessa Shaw), though it's been six months since she broke up with him. His obsession makes it impossible for him to have relationships with other women. He confides to his brother John (Adam Trese), a priest-in-training, that he has sexual problems because of his obsession.

Realizing that Lent is about to start, Matt tells his brother that he's going to do without sex for 40 days and 40 nights. This, he concludes, will force him to get over Nicole and cure his problem. The priest-in-training brother warns Matt that celibacy is not easy.

Matt and his roommate, Ryan (Paulo Costanzo), are co-workers at a dot-com company in San Francisco. Ryan tells everyone about Matt's plan to do without sex. An office pool is started and everyone in the office gets in on it.

After about six days of being productive and happy, Matt goes out and does his laundry. He meets a very pretty girl named Erica (Shannyn Sossamon) at the laundromat and they make plans to come back and see each other next week.

Meanwhile, back at the office, the women he works with are trying to get him to crack. Girls are making out with each other in front of Matt and one girl (Monet Mazur) sits on a copier with her legs spread and photocopies her ass for Matt. Matt is strong, though, and doesn't give in to temptation.

When Matt and Erica do their laundry again, they make plans to go out on a date. Matt takes her on a bus ride all around the city and rather than kiss her goodnight at the end of the evening, he high-fives her and falls backward off some stairs.

The next day at work, Matt finds out about the office pool, and, worse yet, it turns out that a guy at work set up a website about Matt and his vow of chastity. Matt sees that it's been 'protected by Cyber Nanny', which is the company that Erica works for. It's one of those search engines that keeps kids from finding porn on the web. Matt realizes that Erica must know about his abstinence. He goes to her office, where she finds out that she's seen the site, and she's not too happy about it.

They go out to dinner a few nights later, after Erica's cooled down, and Nicole and her new fiancé are there. Matt introduces Nicole to Erica and Erica realizes that Matt's celibacy is a result of his breakup with Nicole. Matt lies and tells her that it's not true. Erica, sick of Matt's lies, leaves the restaurant.

Matt's co-workers are getting desperate to get Matt to have sex, and one guy puts some crushed Viagra into his orange juice. Their boss (Michael Maronna) drinks it and goes off to the bathroom to jerk off. Another co-worker finds Matt hiding in a supply closet, shaking and sweating. He gives Matt a dirty magazine and convinces Matt to go into the bathroom and jerk off. Matt's about to, but then he hears his boss jerking off in the next stall over, so he doesn't do anything but climb out the bathroom window and run to Erica's house.

Erica and Matt have a very erotic encounter without touching each other. Somehow, Erica actually gets off, then she falls asleep and Matt goes home.

On his way to work the next day, Matt hallucinates that every woman he sees is naked. He goes to his brother's office at the church and finds him making out with a nun. At first, Matt thinks it's another hallucination, but, no, his brother couldn't remain celibate and is going to take some time off from the seminary.

Matt goes to work and starts daydreaming about his romantic encounter with Erica. A co-worker wakes him up and tells him to get into the conference room for a meeting with an important client. As Matt walks into the conference room, each of his co-workers stares at his crotch with a look of horror and amazement. Matt enters the conference room with a huge hard-on. His boss points it out to Matt and tells him to go home for the day.

At home, Matt asks Ryan to handcuff him to his bed so that he won't be able to do anything to ruin his vow, which is ending tonight. Ryan does so, and leaves the door unlocked so that Erica can let herself in when she comes by for their date later that night. Matt falls asleep, handcuffed to his bed, and dreams about breasts and breasts and more breasts. He wakes up to find his ex-girlfriend Nicole, finishing herself off on top of him. She placed a bet with Matt's co-workers and it seems she's just won the pool. Erica arrives as Nicole is leaving and puts two and two together. She storms off, leaving Matt handcuffed to the bed posts.

Matt puts together a little box of reminders of their relationship and leaves it with Erica's roommate. Erica looks at the box, has a change of heart and goes to the laundromat. Matt shows up, they kiss passionately and live happily ever after.

[edit] Criticism

The film portrays the male protagonist being forced into nonconsensual intercourse with his spiteful ex-girlfriend. This depiction of rape involves no negative consequences to the rapist, but rather makes the victim appear to be the one at fault.
The Catholic League claimed the film parodied Lent in a vulgar way. The League is also known for protesting other Miramax films such as the 1994 film Priest and Dogma in 1999. Dogma was later released by Lions Gate Films.
A rarely noted fact about Lent which the film failed to mention was that while Lent encompasses forty days, they are not consecutive. This is because Sundays, being inherent days of celebration in Catholicism, are not technically part of Lent. Interestingly for the plot of the film, this also means that one is exempt from one's Lenten fasting and obligations on Sundays during the season.