Film Reviews

Humpday

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• Details: US / 94mins (TBC).

What an odd idea for a comedy: two straight guys - one of them married and planning a family - decide to have sex with each other in a homemade porno flick. This indie bromance, however, climaxes (pun not intended) when it should have been getting down to business (pun intended) and should have used its idea as a jumping off point instead of being the focus for the entire movie.
"It's weird and it's great and it pushes boundaries and that's what art is." Ben (Duplass) hasn't seen college buddy Andrew (Leonard - The Blair Witch Project's Josh) in years and is surprised to be roused from his bed in the middle of the night to the sound of him banging at the door. Andrew has been travelling the world since college, living the 'Kerouac' lifestyle, as Ben puts it, while Ben is a 'white picket fence' according to Andrew, disappearing into a domestic life with Anna (Delmore). Getting stoned and drunk one night, the conversation turns to the porn festival Hump Fest and Andrew and Ben come up with a bizarre idea to enter their own film in the festival. Both, however, hopes the other will back down but, men being men, neither do and plans to make their 'art film project' are made in earnest. And Ben has to tell his wife first...
Whether they go through with it or not won't be divulged here but regardless of their decision, we never get to see how the fallout affects Ben and Andrew's friendship, or Ben and Anna's marriage, because director Lynn Shelton rolls the credits. Humpday is missing its final act and, because of this, the end result is a little pointless. The promise is that this indie comedy takes the bromance of Superbad or I Love You, Man to the next level, but it doesn't. It could have commented on the areas of our lives that are left unfulfilled or unexplored (sexual or otherwise) and how much we really know our loved ones and ourselves. Instead the audience gets a lot of male posturing with Shelton preferring to just giggle at the awkwardness of it all. Admittedly this is where Humpday shines - the uncomfortable conversations, delivered in documentary style spontaneity, add a layer of realism over the top of the absurd. Humpday is almost believable and almost funny.

Review by Gavin Burke