Humpday

By Matt Prigge
Add Comment Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Jul. 28, 2009

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Amerindies don’t come more high-concept than Humpday, Lynn Shelton’s utterly deserving Sundance fave. To wit: Two old friends (Mumblecore star Mark Duplass and The Blair Witch Projects’ Josh Leonard) reunite, get trashed and make an impulsive, intoxicated pact to participate in a local DIY porn festival. Their original, outré idea: two straight guys having gay sex, starring themselves.

Come the cold light of the morning, however, both refuse to back down. Duplass, married and seriously talking kids with the wife (Alycia Delmore), seeks to prove he’s not as button-down as he fears Leonard thinks he is. Leonard, meanwhile, lives a rootless bohemian lifestyle, an image he fears he might not be able to live up to. As the fuckfest looms, the two continue their game of chicken, and it might take till the two are in a fleshy embrace for there to be any swerving.

That said, there are some possible misconceptions to get out of the way. Firstly, broad premise or not, Humpday is a) not played for broad, farcical yuks and b) all the more cackle-inducing because of that. A series of protracted, chatty set pieces in which the actors improvised over a detailed outline, Humpday takes a potentially wacky idea and treats it seriously, wringing its plentiful laughs from the characters’ flailing attempts to do just about anything.

Which brings us to misconception two: Despite the gay angle—and the film’s razor-sharp exploration of gay panic among not just men, but men who’d proudly classify themselves as social progressives—it’s only one of the film’s many ideas. Shelton’s film is in fact best read as a more overtly comedic version of Old Joy: two old best buds, now on different sides of the social divide, tragically failing to reconnect. But even that doesn’t consider the honest evaluation that all working relationships need to function on at least some lies, or the way the characters attempt to maintain their ever-rickety self-image.

There’s a lot going on in Humpday, and it does it all through scenes that feel organic and organically hilarious. In arguably the best scene, Leonard and Delmore bond over drinks, she unaware of the porn, he unaware that she’s unaware. For several nail-biting minutes on end, the two talk around and around the truth, and when the bomb finally drops, Delmore’s reaction is so genuine it’s as though the actress herself wasn’t aware either. Ridiculous premise or not, Humpday feels very real. A-

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Interview With Lynn Shelton, Director of 'Humpday'
By Matt Prigge

Arguably the biggest hit at this year’s Sundance, "Humpday" inarguably has the catchiest premise: two old friends reunite and, while inebriated, decide to make an amateur gay porn film. PW talks with director Lynn Shelton.

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Posted Jul. 31, 2009 | Comments: 0