Humpday

Plot synopsis:
Two heterosexual male friends Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard) meet after having not seen each other for 10 years. During a party, they find themselves locked in a "mutual dare" situation engaging to make a gay pornography film, including anal sex, as an "art project" between two straight guys and submit it to the HUMP! film festival. They do not decide yet who will penetrate whom. Ben tells Andrew that he will discuss the project with his wife Anna (Delmore). However, as Ben begins to describe the project to Anna, she reacts skeptically at the mere mention of amateur pornography. Ben finds himself lying to Anna; he talks about the project with only vague detail, telling her that he will likely act as a behind-the-scenes assistant to the hypothetical film crew.
Later, Anna finds herself alone with Andrew and suggests that they have a drink together in an effort to get to know one another. Now drunk, the two begin discussing Ben and Andrew's art project, Andrew assuming that Ben has completely informed Anna of their intentions. After Andrew bluntly reveals that Ben will potentially have a gay experience, Anna becomes upset and confused, confronting Ben personally. The next morning, Ben insists that he still wants to go through with the project, and Anna consents.
Ben and Andrew meet in a hotel, bringing a video camera. Their attempts to have sex are prolonged by lengthy discussions and frequent analyzing of how to approach the experience. Although they film themselves kissing each other on the mouth, and hugging each other in their underpants, neither Ben nor Andrew appear comfortable becoming completely naked, let alone having sex. The two continue to talk, not sure if either one will be able to achieve an erection, and begin to question the validity of their experiment as a work of art. Ben finally suggests that they call off the project, and the two laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. Ben leaves the hotel, intending to apologize to Anna. Andrew prepares to leave shortly afterward, but not before reviewing the footage that the two have recorded.

Tags: dramatic, comedy, realism

Review:
Believability also starts going out the window about halfway through the film, with characters acting and reacting in ways that no human would, but are required contrivances to keep the story rolling along.I too was not a fan of the overall aesthetic of the film, a sort of forced naturalism, with almost exclusively hand-held camera work, awkward quick focus and zoom changes, and an improvised feel to the dialog.
The two guys are best friends Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard), whose lives have taken very different directions since High School.
Ben is married to Anna (Alycia Delmore) with a baby on the way and Andrew is an artist and world traveler spending time with different women and experiences.
Andrew mentions that he'd really like to make an erotic art film and Ben thinks that porn is a dime a dozen and if you really want to make something memorable, it has to be unique.
Both guys feel like they have something to prove; Andrew that he is an uncompromising artist and Ben that he is not the boring, buttoned down family man that people think.
I'm going to address this review to those women and straight men; the self-loathing gays I'll pray for.The fact that at least one of the men in Humpday is himself relatively enlightened does not make the movie's offenses any less offensive; it makes them worse, because it also shows how shallow and unreliable that enlightenment actually is.
Two straight guys decide to make a porno where they are the ones having intercourse with each other.Do I have your attention?Well, that is the premise of Humpday, winner of the Special Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
Although that is the main storyline of the film there is so much more going on.Ben (Mark Duplass) lives a quiet life with his wife Anna (Alycia Delmore).
Ben and Andrew see the only possible way to make a splash would be to film themselves having sex because it would be about their love and how strong their friendship is.The next day, needless to say the conversation hasn't gone away, and after their hangover's lift, they discuss further about whether or not to go through with their plan or not.
Problems arise with Ben wife, manhood being questioned, and the actual act of following through with a plan like this.This film is more than just about two guys trying to make a porno.
Yes, two guys making a porno is one of them.Writer/director Lynn Shelton, who appears as the woman Andrew meets, has created a very personal and intelligent look into something absurd and intoxicating.
Movie about two college friends Andrew (Joshua Leonard) and Ben (Mark Duplass) getting together years after college.
Being a masculine, wholly heterosexual man, I slipped into my pj's, lit and candle and settled down to watch a movie about 2 straight guys talk themselves into having gay sex.Humpday is about two best friends, separated by different lifestyles, brought a little too close together again by a "I'm not backing out of this" style drunk/high bet about making a gay art sex video.Watching these 2 superbly sculpted characters interact is a joy to anyone who has ever had a proper friend...whom they would sleep with on film for art if they had to.
Their incredible well portrayed relationship begins to strangely rope you in to kinda wishing they'd go through with the deed, no matter how much the thought initially makes you feel all ewwwww inside.A few times I caught myself relating a little too much to their plight, and I doubt I'm gonna be able to look at certain friends of mine again.The script is bare and honest, perfectly delivered by the 3 main characters, and is a solid foundation for this almost documentary style movie.All in all, Humpday with not only make you cringe to the corest of your core, but also make you ask a few questions about yourself that you really don't want to be asking..
To set the record straight -- maybe pun intended -- "Humpday" is not a true gay and lesbian film, nor is it a "bromantic comedy" with homophobic slapstick.
Lynn Shelton's film is simple: what if two best heterosexual guy friends somehow got it in their heads that filming themselves having sex with each other would be a good idea?
"Humpday" explores the bond between men and the difficulty they have with intimacy, particularly when its sexual in nature.Ben (Mark Duplass) is a recently married man planning on starting a family when his old best friend, the free-spirited Andrew (Joshua Leonard) shows up at his house in the middle of the night.
At a party, the two learn about an amateur porn competition and come up with the idea that two straight best friends having sex with each other would make a real artistic statement.
They really seem like legitimate people in real-life relationships.At many points in the film, Ben and Andrew address why they're doing this.
At other times, you kind of wonder why the issue has been blown up this much in the first place.I think Shelton made this film because she wanted to explore the male bond and this was really the way to pull and push at it and manipulate it: by creating these circumstances.
The film is surprisingly perceptive with some interesting insights into relationships but it gets a bit too hung up on two guys talking about having sex with each other and will they or won't they."Humpday" is an LGBT film in the sense that it comes from a very sexually open and progressive mindset.
In that sense LGBT characters are a significant part of the film, but they mostly add to the discussion of sexuality and relationships as seen through these two best friends.
I'm pretty sure more than half of the movie is improvised, you can literally feel the nervousness and tension and chemistry among the cast, and I wish I could have a relationship like the one between Ben and Anna..
The director chose a highly unlikely scenario -- two straight guys setting out on a dare to film themselves having sex with each other -- and then handled it with total humanity and authenticity.Watching the film I thought it was obvious that Shelton followed the same method that Larry David uses in *Curb Your Enthusiasm* -- i.e., she wrote out a detailed scenario and then had the actors improvise the individual scenes.
This film is about two guy friends who have to deal with their drunken pledge to make a porn movie with each other.I think "Humpday" is wrongly marketed as a comedy, which makes viewers expect things which are not in the film.
Humpday has that, and it's refreshing.It's a simple premise, though anything but in its execution of human interaction: two old friends, Ben and Andrew, meet again after Andrew's been away with his art-type friends for a while, and one night when Ben is over at Andrew's friends party a sort-of dare is made by Ben, that he and Andrew will do a gay porno together for an upcoming porno movie festival called Humpday.
I'd be interested to see someone's reaction going in on the film cold, knowing only that it's a comedy about two guys planning on having sex together for an amateur porn.
With that said, Lynn Shelton takes us on a feminist ride--after all, two women having sex on film is sometimes considered "art," so why not explore that angle with men?
In the final seconds of the film when Andrew stops laughing while looking at what was recorded, I was left with this sense of his longing--for completion of something (as he said), for something more intimate with his good friend, for being part of something greater than himself--all things Ben already had.
However as the film progressed I did feel more comfortable with the character's direction as they begin to loosen up and loose focus on Ben & Anna's relationship.Anna & Ben's late night slumber is rudely awoken by Andrew, Mark's college buddy and a decent plot line of a drunken promise between the two to make an amateur porn surprisingly unfolds.
A classic comedy of embarrassment from writer/director Lynn Shelton who brings an unerringly accurate eye to her tale of two life-long buddies who decide to make a 'gay' porn video together, ('Two straight guys bang each other'), drawing totally terrific performances from leads Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard, (the guys), and Alycia Delmore, (Duplass' much too talented wife), in the process.It's a very funny and surprisingly truthful picture, full of the kind of people you would probably cross the road to avoid, (with the exception of Delmore who is sexy and sweet in equal measure).
Philosophically speaking, it grows on the right path.Practically, it deviates widely.Sometimes by taking shortcuts - for example, giving the wife the bar storyline with the sole purpose to progress the plot by providing him with a valid stepping stone towards going through with the video.Sometimes by taking the scenic route - aka, the loooooong, bendy talk that ultimately gets them to put their clothes back on.Still interesting in terms of studying the way we self-steer, thrusting options, making pointed arguments that are often detached from reality, solely because subconsciously we desperately want or don't want to do something, trying to convince the world by first convincing ourselves.Duplass is, as always, an effortless pleasure to watch; and that's about it regarding performances.Mediocre..
Awarded the Sundance Special Jury Prize, the premise is pretty much hilariously insane, though I'm not sure if there will really be straight guys out there who will decide to go do it with their male best friends, perhaps only in a state of drunken stupor with false bravado in not wanting to lose face?
Which is exactly how this film portrayed its lead protagonists in their attempt to justify their once-in-a-lifetime project pact using a film festival as an end to justify their means.Ben (Mark Duplass) and Anna (Alycia Demore) are a happily married couple who are quite fixed in the formula of how life should be like, and are perhaps living it up quite blissfully until Ben's best friend Andrew (Joshua Leonard) comes gatecrashing into their peaceful lives in the wee hours of one fine early morning, and hence becomes the perfect fodder for some shenanigans to follow, being the disruptive force that he is.
Think You Me and Dupree.In a drunken, doped state at a spaced out party one day which Anna of course decided to pass on, Ben and Andrew declare that they will be submitting their own "art" film to a film festival, the hump festival, but since it's no kick to submit just another porn film, they decide that their straight orientation going all out for each other, would be the draw to win top prize.
bonin'." -BenThe word 'Humpday' was originally coined as a humorous term for the middle-day of the work week (getting over the hump), and certainly sounds more interesting than the word it replaces: Wednesday.But now, writer-director Lynn Shelton has adopted the slang-ier meaning of the first syllable 'hump' (have sex) and added a homo-erotic resonance (of sorts).To sum up, the concept for the film revolves around two straight guys who get talked into making a gay-porn video for a private 'visual arts' festival known as (yet again) HUMPDAY.Now if homophobic Hollywood had been bold enough to take on this kind of masculinity-defying idea, the result would have been a high-concept farce not unlike the Adam Sandler/Kevin James vehicle "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry," with most of the jokes made at the expense of gay lifestylers rather than for them.
And they do.And best of all, these genre-busting, limited release, art-house vid-films ("Baghead," etc.) occasionally eclipse Hollywood's big-budget Oscar contenders by revealing the truth in a totally new way or discovering a fresh talent.As an audience member, I felt some sections of "Humpday" were uncomfortable to watch, and a portion of the semi-improvised dialogue could have been sharpened, but at the same time, the performance of Alycia Delmore was worth the price of admission alone.
As Ben's wife 'Anna', Delmore's performance is as true, spontaneous, and award-worthy as anything the Oscar-folk will nominate at the end of the year.Thus proving the idea that you don't need big stars and a multi-million dollar budget to make cinema.
At a party with a bunch of Andrew's friends, the two men agree to make a gay porn for entry into a local amateur film festival.
Humpday is another in a recent trend of movies made by women about two straight, male best friends getting together and having sex (also see Brokeback Mountain (written by a woman) and Old Joy).
"Humpday," Lynn Shelton's indie about straight men attempting gay porn for an erotic film festival, has been praised for its honest portrayal of male relationships, but any goodwill I had for the film was squandered on the intensely dislikable protagonist, the (come on) unbelievable plot line, and complete lack of dramatic payoff.
There's Ben (Mark Duplass), the idiot husband who plays both sides, either blaming his wild friend for his own decisions or condescendingly touting his "great" relationship with his wife as a wildcard for his reckless behavior, his buddy Andrew (Joshua Leonard), the slovenly, worldly hipster whose artsy lesbian acquaintances spark the drunken conversation that leads to the auspicious idea, and Ben's eternally forgiving wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore), whose ability to tolerate her husband's stupidity is surely her greatest asset.
The tension between Ben (Mark Duplass) and Anna (Alycia Delmore) is beautifully built up, so the moment she learns what Ben and Andrew (Joshua Leonard) have planned is the high spot of the film.
If they had persuaded Anna to go, her reaction would have been really interesting.One problem for a gay viewer (and this film is likely to be touted to a gay audience) is that the central issue - sex between men - carries so much more tension than it need.
As so many here have said, the film started great and promising but disappointed in the end.What can we learn from it?a) that the fear of homosexuality is engraved deeper in even most 'open-minded' men than they would expect b) that 'art' - if we expect the social role of art to be overcoming boundaries and to leave traditional ways of thinking behind - requires serious dedication, it doesn't always come easy.But in both ways, the movie just illustrated the well-known facts, but didn't give us any new ideas, leave alone new ways of how to deal with them any better than Charlie Average would do.
Humpday was a downhill slide.It's a movie that's just about entirely conversation, and it began refreshing, with two seemingly open-minded straight men discussing doing a porn together as an art piece.
When, half-jokingly, the two friends challenge each other to film themselves having sex for the sake of art, each of them has different lines to cross - apart from the obvious one, and apparently the one that matters the least: that they're straight.
if the slightly subversive sex plot - two straight guys decide to have sex to enter a porn competition - is the reason why people want to see Humpday, the movie will indeed disappoint because that plot line - removed from the rest of the film - can indeed get very boring very quickly.
humpday is perhaps not the most sophisticated way to express these ideas, but it certainly brings to life something more than two straight guys trying to have sex in a mockumentary indie..
(This, by the way, reminded me of the enormously better 'Rounders' set-up.) Well, one night after boozing and smoking dope, Ben and Andrew make a pact to produce/star in a porn film that's "art" because it involves two straight men.
There's literally thousands of "Straight Man-on-Man" (or men-on-men) videos out there (whether you believe they are heterosexual or not,) so that part of the movie made me wonder if they thought this idea up in 1978 and just now got around to making it into something "new" and "shocking." One of the characters later in the film, while trying to back out, excuses his possible departure as that this is not really "art." He has a point.
Local free paper "The Stranger" sponsors an indie art film festival, which features amateur porn entries, called "HumpFest." In the 'joie de vivre' of recalling the macho bravado and one-upsmanship of the early days of their relationship, Ben and Andrew make a proposition for their own radical "HumpFest" entry: two straight guys having gay sex.
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.
When these two protagonists (the little known but very able Mark Duplass as very married Ben and Joshua Leonard as Ben's crazy college friend Andrew) get to the hotel room where the deed is to be done, the movie doesn't just walk away from the prize - they really face it and themselves and talk through the challenge in sensitive and almost realistic terms.Neither actor is the kind of buff physical specimen where the audience half wants to see them naked regardless of orientation - they come across merely as believable "regular guys" you can care about whether they have sex or not - and you believe that these idiot straight boys just might talk themselves into it.