journal features
movie reviews
photo of the day

movie review - The 40-Year-Old Virgin

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2006.08.19

This is an unlikely movie about a guy who somehow remains a virgin until the age of forty. It's a fairly silly comedy, and so it shouldn't be taken seriously. Yet it manages to not be sexy-silly or to treat its subject appropriately or to be at all kind to the lead character. For instance they set up a bunch of stupid reasons why he's still a virgin and depict him doing things a ten-year-old would, like obsess over "action figures". In fact, the director doesn't really seem to have a goal here and doesn't do much more than assemble a bunch of awful-to-some-degree people and turn them loose around this theme. I looked into the writer/director, I'm concerned for him - his work seems to give Woody Allen vibe.

Not recommended.

rand()m quote

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.

—John F. Kennedy