'40 Days? humorous for teens but otherwise blah

"40 Days and 40 Nights"

Directed by: Michael Lehman

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Shannyn Sossamon

Rated: R

Any fan of "Seinfeld" will no doubt remember the infamous "contest" epi-sode and understands what it means to be "master of one's domain." Director Mi-chael Lehman is obviously one of those fans and has fashioned an entire film based around the same sort of premise.

Matt has recently been dumped by the love of his life, Nicole, and while having a string of one-night stands he begins to develop a problem. Whenever he's in bed with a girl, he suffers a panic attack, feels an earthquake coming on and sees the plaster on the ceiling crack, opening a huge black hole. This leads him to flee the scene of the intended coupling.

In the early part of the film we see Matt in the confessional getting some pretty strange advice from the priest. We soon find out this guy is not a priest yet and is also Matt's big brother, a seminary student.

When Lent arrives, Matt gets what he thinks is a great idea: giving up sex for the holy holidays. Forty days without sex ... of ANY kind: no kissing, no nibbling, no caressing.

Brother John tries to explain that celibacy is no easy row to hoe (he knows all too well), and he is pretty sure Matt will never make it. Matt, however, is determined and believes if he can do this, he will be over Nicole once and for all.

He spends his first few days building model cars and trying to keep himself occupied any way he can. His roommate, who is constantly running into pairs of women ready for a double date, tries his best to get Matt off the wagon. He even tells Matt's co-workers about what's going on, and not only do they organize a high-dollar office pool, but being an Internet company, they create a Web page about Matt, the celibate.

Everyone in the office then tries to get Matt to break his vow on the specific day of their individual bet. One woman shows him a tattoo on her inner thigh and then photocopies her backside and writes her phone number on the copy. Pretty subtle humor, eh?

Matt takes to spending Friday nights at the Laundromat, and while there he meets a very interesting, and drop-dead gorgeous, girl named Erica. The two hit it off and begin dating, but Matt doesn't tell her about his vow. She starts to get weirded out when he won't even kiss her, and she eventually discovers his secret by stumbling onto the Web site.

The two try to work things out, but toward the end of the 40 days, things start getting a bit twisted. Matt is hallucinating. Every woman he sees is naked. Further complicating matters is the return of Nicole, who wants Matt all the more when she realizes he doesn't want her. Her vow is to make Matt break his.

While "40 Days and 40 Nights" isn't a BAD film, it really seems all too superfluous. I suppose the late-teen crowd will find it hilarious, but I only laughed three or four times throughout. Director Leh-man has had a hit-and-miss career, di-recting everything from "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" a far better sexual/romantic comedy and the black comedy "Heathers" to awful stuff like "Hudson Hawk" and "My Giant." This new film finds itself in the middle.

Faring much better is a film from 1999 that has just been released to the home video market.

Zhang Yimou's "The Road Home" is a beautiful film that takes a simple story, a universal tale recognizable to people in any culture, and fashions a lyrical, touching film.

Zhang's previous films ("Raise the Red Lantern," "Ju Dou," "The Story of Qiu Ju") have all been beautifully shot and finely crafted pieces of cinema. With "The Road Home," the director has reached a new plateau in his ability to use the film medium to tell a quintessential story while conveying the complexities that surround the simplest of human endeavors.

The tale is narrated by Luo Yusheng, an engineer who returns to his remote village upon the death of his father. Luo's mother is insisting that, in accordance with ancient Chinese ritual, her husband's body be transported on foot from the hospital (a considerable distance) to the village for burial. Most of the people in the village are old, and finding pallbearers for this "marathon" promises to be a formidable task.

The middle section of the film is a flashback that tells how the couple met and fell in love so many years ago.

It's a simple tale told with such richness and photographed so beautifully (Zhang was a cinematographer before he started directing) that many scenes will take your breath away.

If you're not afraid of subtitles and don't mind a movie without explosions, chases, car crashes and evil geniuses plotting to take over the world, give "The Road Home" a look.

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)