Review of Humpday (2009) by Lewis P — 28 Mar 2010

Refreshing tale of male bonding with plea for tolerance as added bonus.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***.

Humpday is a clever and original story about two friends who re-establish their relationship after not seeing each other for quite some time. Mark is a transportation engineer living in Seattle, married to Anna (Alycia Delmore) who is hoping to get pregnant and start a family. One night at about 1:30 in the morning while the couple is sleeping, Mark's old college buddy Andrew (Joshua Leonard) pounds on their door and wakes Mark and Anna up. You're expecting Mark to be annoyed that his old friend has barged in on them without calling beforehand, but surprisingly Mark is ecstatic that Andrew has reappeared in his life.

Andrew is a perennial Bohemian type who would have fit right in at Woodstock circa 1969. Mark invites Andrew to stay over and he gladly accepts. We find out that Andrew is just back from Mexico but we're wondering how he supports himself. It turns out that Andrew apparently doesn't need a lot of money to get by as long as he has other Bohemian friends who'll support him. He gets himself situated in a house with the moniker 'Dionysus' prominently displayed over the front door (that should be a clue that farcical happenings are about to transpire). The house is rented by a Lesbian couple, one of whom is Monica played by the film's director, Lynn Shelton (Later Andrew puts the moves on Monica only to discover that she's thoroughly gay and doesn't want to have sex with him).

Anna is about to prepare pork chops for dinner for Mark when Andrew calls and invites his buddy over for dinner at the 'Dionysus' House. Mark accepts, expecting to stay only a few hours and return for dinner with his wife. But Mark and Andrew end up getting stoned and having such a great time together that Mark loses track of time with Anna ending up eating dinner alone. While at Dionysus, the upcoming Humpfest is discussed?an artistic porn festival that invites entries from amateur filmmakers. Mark wants to prove to Andrew that getting married and settling down has not dampened his spirit for adventure nor made him into a prude so he suggests they make a film together for the festival with both of them having sex together?the novelty being that these are two straight guys willing to have 'gay sex'.

There is of course one obstacle to going through with their plan and that is of course Anna, who Mark realizes might not exactly go crazy over the idea. He promises Andrew that he'll discuss it first with his wife but loses the nerve when he assumes she'll be hostile to his proposal. Later, while Andrew is having drinks with Anna alone, blurts out their novel plan of 'male bonding'.

Although initially hostile, Anna eventually comes around to accepting the idea, allowing Mark to go ahead with the tryst, as she wants him to "get it out" of his "system". She even confesses that she made out with some guy while visiting a friend while they were married. Finally, Mark and Andrew meet at a motel with a video camera in order to film the sex act together. It turns out that deep down they feel awkward about the whole thing and over-intellectualize the experience by over-analyzing their feelings in front of the camera. The decision is made not to go through with the project and both Mark and Andrew agree after much deliberation, that they're "okay" with their decision.

Writer/Director Lynn Shelton encouraged the actors to improvise most of the scenes from her script which was designed to be only a general blueprint. Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard end up being highly entertaining as the two buddies who try to outdo one another in an amusing game of one-oneupmanship. It's funny because you don't expect the more conservative character Mark to end up outdoing his free-spirited chum in the game of 'who can be more tolerant'.

In a sense, Shelton's story is a plea for tolerance as she takes the taboo subject of gay sex and has two heterosexual characters demystify it into something that is wholly non-threatening. I think most tolerant gay people will pick this up but there will always be a very small minority of 'militant' gays who will be offended since in their 'all-or-nothing' universe, the decision of the straight characters not to have sex is interpreted as a complete rejection of the gay lifestyle. Of course that is not the intent of the filmmaker, who is quite obviously a person who supports gay people.

With the breezy banter between the two principals as well as the filmmaker's commendable plea for tolerance, Humpday stands out as a refreshing change of pace in the indie world chocked full of predictable melodramas and comedies peopled with implausible caricatures. Ultimately, Humpday wins no awards as a film of 'great ideas'--but fulfills the cardinal rule of farce: one is permitted the outrage without the results.