Love stories come in all styles, throughout the ages we have seen just about every conceivable type of story, the "new" type is the male bromance movie, this year alone we have had several, the best of these was I Love You, Man, this movie dealt with every typical mans idea of friendship and the lengths we as men will go to keep that friendship. Now comes a different type of bromance movie that will push the boundaries of what most men think of friendship. In "Humpday" two friends make a drunken pledge that almost goes to far.
Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard) have been friends since college, they don't really see each other that much, Ben has done the Man thing, he has grown up and even has gotten married, he and his wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore) are even trying to have a baby, they feel that they are now ready to have a complete family. While Andrew is off globe hopping. One night while in an airport in Mexico Andrew thinks why not drop in on an old friend, and he does so at two in the morning. The two men share a chemistry as friends who can take a step back and look at the other’s life with a touch of envy.
After hooking up with a polyamorous woman, Leonard tells Ben to come over to her house to pick him up, meanwhile Anna is at home cooking dinner for the three of them, and you can sense that when Ben gets to the house, it is going to be a long night. When Ben and Andrew start drinking, Ben has enough forethought to call Anna and tell her he is going to stay awhile. The party turns into an all night affair and Ben and Andrew get drunk, the group talks about an amateur film fest called humpday, where people enter homemade "artsy" porn films and are judged by the other contestants. The two are basically talked into making a film themselves.
The movie takes a turn here that most men would find creepy,how far are two friends expected to go for the sake of art? each man once the plot has been hatched is afraid of being the one to call it off, Ben doesn't want to be thought of as a straight laced family man and so he goads Andrew into sticking with the idea, even though he knows Anna won't approve. Once the game is set in motion the men think that it would be worse to back out, so their idea of two straight men having sex is about to become a reality for them.
Anna is of course upset with Ben, she doesn't understand why it is he thinks he has go through with what she thinks is a stupid idea, but after a confession of her own she tells Ben that if this is something that you feel committed to then he has to do it. When Ben gets to the motel room he has reserved for the taping, he has enough time to reconsider his options, when Andrew gets there the two decide that they will do it, but it takes some encouragement from each other to get started. The two start the tape rolling and explain what it is they are going to try to do. Things get off quickly and the two men decide that it may have been to quick, they sit on the bed and discuss what it is they are doing. In an interview with writer/director Lynn Shelton she claims that the two men were given Cart Blanche to do what ever they wanted, the ending of the film is all ad libbed, Lynn claims that even she didn't know what direction the two stars would take. These scenes in the motel room are some of the best on film today, the two men are so quick with their lines it is hard to fathom that they are ad libbed, these scenes also save the movie from being just another male bonding movie that we have seen over and over before.
I give Humpday a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 0, this is a small market film that may be able to compete for a major part of the market, it won't appeal to every one, it's theme is a little harsh for some people to sit through, but you should know, that there is no male frontal nudity and the worse thing the two men do is ...... Kiss.
Humpday is rated R for some Strong Sexual Content, Pervasive Language and a Scene of drug Use
Running time is 1 hr. 34 mins.
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