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Loading ...`Humpday’ explores intimacy of male friendship
07.16.2009 2:00pm EDT
(Los Angeles) The mumblecore genre goes adult in more ways than one with “Humpday,” a comedy about a couple of longtime buddies – both straight men – who decide to make a gay porn film together.
Writer-director Lynn Shelton has said she’d prefer not to have her third feature classified as part of the mumblecore movement, indies known mostly for featuring twentysomethings who sit around and talk about themselves. Nevertheless, many of the trademarks are undeniably there: the low-budget aesthetic, the naturalism of the dialogue and the unabashed solipsism. These are people who are interested in themselves and others like them, and if you’re interested in them too, that’s cool. But if not, no worries.Regardless of labels, “Humpday” marks a maturation of this style: For one thing, the characters are in their early 30s and one of them has a steady job, a house and a wife with whom he’s trying to start a family. (He happens to be played by actor-filmmaker Mark Duplass, who was behind such mumblecore staples as “The Puffy Chair” and “Baghead” with his brother, Jay.) Also, there’s a discernible plot with actual tension. “Humpday” has a lot of intentionally awkward laughs but it also has some quiet, intimate moments that will make you hold your breath, wondering how they might play out.
Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard) are old college pals who haven’t seen each other in a decade. When world-traveler Andrew shows up on Ben’s suburban doorstep in the middle of the night, they easily return to a teasing, brotherly banter. Then at a booze-and-drug-fueled party the next night, they wind up daring each other to have sex on camera – supposedly in the name of art for an amateur film contest.
“It’s beyond gay,” Ben insists in justifying the endeavor.
Once they sober up the following day, neither of them is willing to back down, which forces them both to confront their identities and motivations. Duplass and Leonard have such great chemistry and their improvised exchanges feel so natural, they make this premise easier to believe than you might expect.
Shelton shows great insight into the contradictory mind of the modern man. But another of the film’s great charms is the strength of its chief female character, Ben’s wife Anna, played by Alycia Delmore. So often in mainstream comedies that explore deep male friendships, women are an afterthought; they’re naggy and shrill if they exist at all. Anna is as fully formed as Ben and Andrew, and she’s incredibly cool and down to earth. She also reacts exactly the way you’d expect a wife to react upon learning that her husband is on the verge of making a gay porn movie – especially when he should be focusing his sexual energy on her during this crucial baby-making time.
The pacing lags here and there, which can be a common problem with a stripped-down approach that attempts to recreate realism, and Shelton’s use of shaky, hand-held camera grows tiresome. But Ben and Andrew’s climactic hotel-room scene, if you will, remains unpredictable – and, oddly sweet.
“Humpday,” a Magnolia Pictures release, is rated R for some strong sexual content, pervasive language and a scene of drug use. Running time: 95 minutes. Three stars out of four.
I do not agree with Morgan. Most of the smalltowns you have listed are commercialized ‘gay-friendly’ towns – did you about all of them in the back of the Advocate?
Where’s your Mommy, does she know you’ve been going online to a gay site wit out her knowledge?
Not everyone grew up in a “Wonderful Sugar-coated Gay-Friendly Small town”, some of us had to hide it or be subject to torture from the homophobes.
I bet your family threw you a coming-out party when you told them you were Gay.
Not everyone is herterosexual and not everyone is homosexual – in fact 80 percent of the population is in fact BISEXUAL
1948 Kinsey Scale:
0 = 100% heterosexual
1 = heterosexual with a gay expericence
2 = heterosexual with 3/4 gay experiences
3 = equally heterosexual and homosexual
4 = gay with 3/4 straight experiences
5 = gay with 1 straight experience
6 = 100% gay
Which one are you on the scale??????
Jeff C, nobody thinks that straight men constantly fantasize about having sex with each other. Believe it or not, gay men don’t constantly fantasize about having sex either.
The point is that sexuality is at least somewhat fluid. You know that it is fluid, or else you wouldn’t be so paranoid that straight men might be convinced that it is normal to “go gay” by a stupid movie.
If gender and sexuality were as rigid as you claim, people wouldn’t alter their behavior based on what movies portrayed as normal.
When I was in the service “I did not have sexual relations with strait men.”
Jeff C said: “This is the kind of thinking that gays try to force on heterosexual men in an attempt to convince them that they are not acting normally by being heterosexual.”
I would ask what valid research supports this accusation, the Cool Aid Study?
sounds like a real family movie to me. Once again, filmmakers are trying to convince the average male that “everyone has thoughts of gay sex and it’s perfectly normal to act out these thoughts in a safe environment with a trusted friend. This makes me want to throw up. SARK says that he believes two straight men would have sex just to prove they can because that’s what straight men do. What fantasy world is he living in? Believe it or not, unlike gay men straight men do not spend every waking moment of their lives thinking of sex with someone of the same sex. It is not NORMAL, and the average straight man does NOT have gay sex just to prove that they can. This is the kind of thinking that gays try to force on heterosexual men in an attempt to convince them that they are not acting normally by being heterosexual.
I live in a small town in Southeast Alabama. I am constantly amazed at the number of “married” men have gay sex on the side and don’t consider it cheating because it’s not with another woman. Most “straight” men are just a few drinks away from having a “gay” experience anyway in my experience.
Usually when straight guys end up in gay situations, the joke is on gay people. In this case, I’m not sure. It may mark a genuine step forward in our shift from a culture of heteronormativism.
The dirty secret is that most straight men are perfectly capable of having sex with men, and know it. That is the root of a lot of homophobia. Most gay men are also perfectly capable of having sex with women, but this is thought of as less strange because it is “normal”.
Not all small towns are bad. Depends on where you are. Provincetown is quaint, nice and fun. Saugatuck, MI is a quaint and quiet small town, but a gay-friendly one. I like Mendicino, CA and Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Cape May in New Jersey with its quaint Victorian downtown, well-kept up candy-striped (color-wise that is) houses and elaborately-trimmed Victorian-era sea-side motels is well-worth visiting. As is Milton, Delaware with its collection of Victorian style houses in ice-cream type colors with “ginger-bread” trim.
So depends on what small town you are refering to. Not all small towns are horrible places in need of escape.
Who cares if the adult men having sex with other adult men are gay, bi, straight, whatever – fuck the labels.
SO LONG AS THERE GOOD LOOKING!!!!!
I agree mostly with Sark.
:lololz much:
Sorry but there weak to my eyes.And any man that can get into gay porn and say there straight are sad pathetic & liars.And to be laughted at.And I lolzed enough my chest hurts.
It’s a power play, why two straight men would want to take a tumble. Gay men are becoming more empowered in our society and our sexuality, perhaps, is becoming more intriguing as well.
I think two straight men would have sex just to prove they can, that they can go into this unexplored land and conquer it because that’s what straight men do. Its actually a way of conquering gay men, too and reclaiming some of the power we (as gay men) are taking from them with our new empowerment. And Jose is right on the mark: afterward they will mock that homosexual intimacy. Absolutely. (FYI Yes I am a thirty-something who grew up in a small town, made it out alive and still carry some scars and bitterness.)
As a gay man, I don’t know how to feel about this movie. Almost seems as if the message being sent is that homosexual intimacy is something to be mocked? I probably would not see it if that is the message that continues to sink into my psyche.
The movie sounds interesting. I can’t wait to go see it at the movie theatres.
Clink on the link to watch the movie trailer preview here: http://humpdayfilm.com/