40 Days and 40 Nights

Matt Sullivan, a San Francisco web designer, has just come out of a painful breakup and has spent the time since in a string of brief encounters that leave him feeling empty. For Lent, he makes a vow to give up sex entirely for forty days and forty nights, a pledge that tests his willpower as much as it impresses his friends. Then, only days into his self-imposed abstinence, he meets Erica, a woman he finds himself falling for almost immediately, and the timing could hardly be worse.

The romantic comedy was directed by Michael Lehmann, released in 2002 as the seventh of the eight features he has made to date, following Heathers, Hudson Hawk, Airheads, The Truth About Cats & Dogs, My Giant and Less Is More. Rob Perez wrote the screenplay, and Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Michael London produced. Josh Hartnett plays Matt, with Shannyn Sossamon as Erica, and Paulo Costanzo, Vinessa Shaw, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Adam Trese among a credited cast of thirty-four.

Made for a budget of about 17 million dollars, the film took roughly 95 million dollars worldwide, a strong return for a mid-budget studio comedy. Audiences have been mixed on it: on IMDb it holds 5.6 out of 10 from around 78,000 votes, and on TMDB 5.5 out of 10 from roughly 1,265 votes. A critics' score of 5.2 out of 10 from 135 reviews places it broadly in line with those viewer ratings.