40 Days and 40 Nights

The history of teen movies is loaded to the gills with stories of single-minded teenagers who couldn’t care less about anything else in life just as long as they get to have sex, and plenty of it. Sure, there are variations - some romantic, some dramatic, some even involving inanimate objects - but the desire of the teenage male to get nookie with as many young starlets as humanly possible has been a bankable commodity for American filmmakers for decades now. Thanks to the likes of the Farrelly Brothers, it doesn’t look like going away any time soon, either.

But first-time screenwriter Rob Perez had different ideas. Taking cues, believe it or not, from his own teenage life, Perez concocted a story that’s become the kind of teen movie you don’t see very often. This, folks, is a teen movie about a guy that goes to extraordinary lengths not to have sex. But, no, bible-belt readers, this still isn’t the film you’ve been waiting for; our hero may take a vow of chastity, but that’s not about to stop him and everyone else talking about it, thinking about it, and being tempted to do it. Because as we all know, the average American teenager can’t go five minutes without a shag, let alone 40 days. We know this to be true, because the movies tell us so.

Matt Sullivan (Josh Hartnett, who slotted this in-between Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down) is a successful young web designer with a successful dot-com company (the screenplay’s been around for a while!). He has what would appear to be the perfect life, except for one teensy detail; he broke up with his girlfriend Nicole (Vinessa Shaw) months ago, but can think of nobody else. She may have been bad for him, but he wants her back anyway - an obsession that’s driving Matt and his friends to distraction. Inspired by the seemingly contented celibacy of his brother, who’s studying for the priesthood, Matt makes a snap decision. For the 40-day-long Christian season of Lent, he’s going to give up sex - all kinds of it, including any form of physical contact with anything remotely resembling a girl. This is initially easy enough, until he meets Erica Sutton (Shannyn Sossamon) at the laundromat and falls for her. It’s a match made in heaven - he designs web sites, while she works at a company that censors them. Oh, and there’s the slight problem of his work colleagues running a sweep to guess when he’ll give in to temptation, and a bevy of temptresses eager to try and speed that day along. Matt’s in for a teensy bit of stress.

This reverse variation on the good old fashioned sex comedy is, as it turns out, better than it sounds on paper. While Perez’s screenplay goes for the obvious gag on too many occasions (really, just how many times can an unwanted erection raise a laugh?) and the development of the relationship between Matt and Erica is so rushed it feels contrived and unengaging, there are plenty of good points here. Josh Hartnett plays it straight as Matt and seems to be having fun with the part, while Shannyn Sossamon (last seen in A Knight’s Tale) overcomes the inadequate drawing of her character with an appealing performance that’s nicely understated. The supporting cast - including a hilariously over-the-top Griffin Dunne - play it to the hilt, something that director Michael Lehmann (who made Heathers and The Truth About Cats and Dogs and seems completely in his element here) takes full advantage of. Quite a few scenes are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny - a rare thing in mainstream comedy films these days - and much of the humour is nicely underplayed (like Matt’s priestly brother’s own battle with temptation).

One unintentionally amusing aspect of the movie is the bevy of studio logos that unspool at the start of the film - there are four of the things, for Universal, Miramax, Canal Plus and finally UK production company Working Title. This eats up a full minute of disc time, but at least you can relax in the knowledge that you weren’t the person who had to work out which company got how much from the box office takings.

This one isn’t going to win any awards for dramatic achievement any time soon, but as a light, breezy comedy that looks great (it’s amazing what a few days’ location shooting in San Francisco can do for your Canadian-made movie!) and manages to actually be funny every so often, 40 Days and 40 Nights is perfectly enjoyable fluff.

Very nicely photographed by Eliot Davis, the film’s vibrant images are brought vividly to life on this transfer, with the material shot in Canada - the bulk of the film - carefully lit and colour-timed to match the look of the “real� San Francisco. The result is a very evocative colour palette that leans toward desaturated greens and blues, but which is perfectly capable of delivering warmth where it’s needed. In some ways, actually, it’s one of the most natural-looking transfers around at the moment.

The theatrical aspect ratio is opened up ever so slightly to about 1.8:1, and naturally it’s 16:9 enhanced. The video compression for this DVD was handled by a company called Vidfilm International Digital, and they’ve done a terrific job making sure digital hassles don’t get in the way of the transfer; the only small complaint worth mentioning is an occasional spot of background shimmer, which we only noticed at all because we were looking for it. There’s a little bit of film grain evident at times as well, but it’s never bothersome.

A relatively short film, it’s encoded at a data rate approaching the infamous “superbit� level, and yet the contents of the disc only barely spill over onto a second layer. The layer change comes late in the movie and is reasonably well placed, but quite noticeable.

The audio for the film is heavily balanced towards the front speakers, with very little use made of the surrounds at all; in some ways this is a very old-fashioned sound mix. The LFE channel takes a holiday for much of the run time as well, mostly being used by the music score (but not the soundtrack-album pop songs, which are thankfully left in their original stereo form). Dialogue is centre-channel-anchored and perfectly clear.

There’s nothing remarkable about this soundtrack, but there’s nothing wrong with it either; it serves the movie well.

Mirroring the US disc of the movie, the region 4 edition contains very little in the way of extras. Given the rushed pacing of the movie, some deleted scenes might have been quite interesting, but this is hardly the kind of movie that warrants in-depth analysis.

Audio Commentary: Director Michael Lehmann, producer Michael London (one of seven producers of various kinds who worked on the film) and writer Rob Perez get together for a fairly chatty run-through of the movie, and for the most part it’s quite interesting - not least because of the obvious tension between writer and filmmakers. With Lehmann doing most of the talking, the trio cover some interesting ground, including the opening logo-fest, the opening sequence (re-shot after test screenings) and the autobiographical nature of the story. Well worth a listen, this commentary is also subtitled.

Theatrical Trailer: This is actually the theatrical teaser, specially shot for the occasion with Josh Hartnett and Shannyn Sossamon, both sporting different hairstyles from the ones they wear in the actual movie. It’s soundtracked by the song Under Pressure (by Queen and David Bowie) which does not appear in the film. Video is full-frame, sound is stereo.

With this genre you generally know what you’re in for, and it’s up to the stars to hold your attention and the writers to engage you. Certainly 40 Days and 40 Nights contains enough memorable situation comedy to make for a fun hour and a half, and it’s greatly aided by its two charismatic stars, a talented supporting cast and Lehmann’s typically snappy direction.

Universal’s DVD is light in the extras department, but delivers on picture quality and at least provides a commentary for those who want a bit of behind-the-scenes info without wading through bucketloads of hype.