40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)

[5]

Josh Hartnett stars as a guy so obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, that it haunts any attempt to start a new relationship. So he gives up sex for Lent — right before accidentally meeting Mrs. Right (Shannyn Sossamon). While his friends and co-workers lay bets on how soon he’ll break his vow of celibacy, Hartnett struggles to find a way to win over Sossamon when all forms of physical intimacy are off the table.

40 Days and 40 Nights has a fun second act during which Harnett’s character is tried and tested to comedic effect. The more he tries not to think about sex, the harder it gets to think about anything else. At one point he sees all the women in public bare-breasted, and in an inspired dream sequence he soars across rolling waves of boobies. And, of course, there are a few obligatory boner shenanigans. Perhaps the most interesting scene in the movie is when Hartnett and Sossamon challenge themselves to a touchless night of intimacy. The two create a very sexy love scene using a flower as their intermediary.

In order to enjoy that second act, though, you have to divorce it from a muddled first act that tries far too hard to justify Hartnett’s vow of celibacy and self-gratification. If the character is self aware enough to be unhappy with his sex life, he can reasonably well decide for himself to give up sex for Lent. But the film has him seeing a shrink, imagining that the walls are cracking open whenever he’s imtimate with another woman, and pining for the unlikable ex to the point where you lose identification with him. The third act suffers similarly, when the ex girlfriend figures antagonistically into Hartnett and Sossamon’s consummation. I think the film could have been far more funny and less predictable if it were unburdened by the ex-girlfriend character all together.

With Griffin Dunne. Directed by Michael Lehmann (Heathers, Airheads).