Customer Reviews

Humpday

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

My overall impression of this movie was very uneven. Some of the actings and dialogues were great and poignant, others were flat and unconvincing. I could think of one way of putting this movie to good use, i.e. show the last scene to the evangelists and those who believe that sex between the same sex (homosexuality) is a choice. After they see it, they will think differently.

This is about the most useless and unentertaining movie I have ever seen. It opens with and interesting premise and goes absoultely nowhere... slowly.

I have rarely watched a movie without finding something redeeming. This is one of those times.

It's all about expectations, and I had a very different set of expectations going into this film that were turned upside down and made the film a bit better than the film I was expecting.

From the trailer and description, I thought this was going to be a movie about two guys trying to make a pornographic film. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this was wrong, in fact there isn't any nudity, and the film is not at all about pornography.

Ben is a seemingly normal nice guy newly married to the lovely Anna. One normal middle class night, they are awoken by Ben's college friend, the Bohemian Andrew. Andrew represents the life that Ben secretly still wants no responsibilities; do whatever he wants with whoever he wants whenever he wants. The first half of the film was all about tempting Ben away from a normal middle class married life.

This film is full of surprises and discovery. The first half was nicely paced and I could see the conflict Ben was feeling. Andrew was light and breezy; he was a crazy fun mad man from college. As the second act played out, Ben became annoying, overanalyzing everything; and Andrew slipped into a more normal melodramatic character. Anna rose up as a very strong wonderful character, who changed as a result of the dramatic conflict she felt as she uncovered Ben's lies.

The part that I find amazing about this film is that there was virtually no script. According to the making of featurette, the actors improvised the entire film. The fact that the film was coherent and played so well dramatically is a big credit to the director and actors. The annoying part of the film was the whole question of will they or won't they? In the very last act, that question was asked way too many times.

This is an extremely low budget film. It appears to be a labor of love for the director Lynn Shelton. From my perspective, I think this film was less about relationships with the same gender, but more about being honest and envying what others have.

After watching the making of featurettte, it is amazing that this film holds together as well as it does. The production qualities are pretty good.

The film is rated R due to the subject matter and strong language. I don't recall any nudity in the film. And there certainly is no violence. For a parent that knows their child well, this film could be viewed by slightly younger viewers than the R rating says.

The DVD is full of some excellent special features. I very rarely think that the deleted scenes should be included in the film. However, I think each of those scenes were better than what ended up in the film. The making of featurette is a must watch film. The context of how and why this film was made is excellent.

This is not a film for everyone. I enjoyed it very much. If Lynn Shelton had cut out a few of the "should we" or "shouldn't we" moments and added the deleted scenes, I would have enjoyed the film more. For me, this was a thought provoking film.

The hetero male's fear of being thought gay is explored here as two college buddies get the bright idea to make an art porn film of themselves. Only they chicken out, of course. The wife does a great job, and the dialogue is really quite witty, while the two male leads get their expressions just right. No belly laughs. I guess you could call it a comedy of manners. Worth a watch.

When I first heard about this movie in the trades, I slapped my hand on my head and thought 'Why didn't I think of that?' and rued that such a simple but brilliant angle escaped my notice. Then I saw it, and I learned that even a good idea can be done badly.

The movie itself, technically, is fine. Good camera work, lighting and sound. The acting? Not my style, but it worked and felt organic to the story. My problem was that there really wasnt much of a story here. One friend Ben, is married happily and on the fast track to yuppy-dom while Andrew, a globe trotting hippie wannabe, lands in town and sucks Ben into his hippy commune world where they make a drunken agreement to make a porno featuring the two of them having sex.

Okay. Now what? The answer: Nothing. The stakes are never raised. The two men are never locked into their clandestine rendez-vous by anything more than a dare made among a bunch of drunk and toasted hippsters who probably don't remember the night to begin with. It turns into a macho posturing game of chicken to see who blinks first and neither does, despite the clear fact that they both don't want to do it, but Yuppy Ben needs to prove he's still cool and Andrew has to prove to Ben, and himself, he's also cool. The situation culminates in a moment of truth between Ben, Andrew and Ben's wife that feels torn from the pages of any script from Three's Comapany.

I find it insulting that people think you can just 'go gay', like it's a choice or something you can switch on or off. It's not and this movie oversimplifies something far more complex. Which is sad. This movie could have been the first half of a bigger story that delved deeper (and for one moment, I thought it actually might have.) but it only scratched the surface. It felt to me the filmmakers came too close to a truth and were scared or freaked by it and jumped ship abruptly, which would explain the sloppy and disjointed ending. This movie could have been so much more, but the filmmakers, much like the two leads, didn't want to go all the way.

Director Lynn Shelton and her actors, Mark Duplasss and Joshua Leonard, have decided to take the Bromance trope as far as they felt they dared. What would happen if two straight actors decide, on the flimiest of reasons, to make a gay porn video with themselves as the "actors." Using a format that gives a scene it's content, but allowing the actors to improvise the dialogue, the end result is funny and accurate as far as they take it. But to make the decision that they will kiss but fail at the nudity, let alone the actual attempted sex, robs the film its ultimate validity. Too timid for some, although far too radical for most, it was a disapointment to me. These are not guys you might willingly vote to see nude, but nevertheless the idea that they are pushing their own envelopes, and by extension, ours, lost out. It's a shame because everyone in it is excellent and the idea is timely. I'm sorry they lost the necessary courage to make a meaningful film.

Me too, surprised to see the negative reviews. I have to say, it's the most fun I ever had in a cinema.
The storyline is absurb but the actors make it all very believable. The three main actors all play very likeable characters and from the first scene on there is great chemistry between them.

The dvd is worth getting for the extra's: deleted scenes, a short "making of" documentary and most of all the audiocomment by the two main actors: Mark Duplass & Joshua Leonard. Great fun to hear all the funny stories and anecdotes.

All of the dialogue in this movie is improvised and Joshua Leonard is a MASTER at this craft. He lifts the movie to a higher level. Incredibly funny guy.

So, a must see for a fun night out at the cinema or at home ... with friends.

I came here after watching it yesterday to write a review of Humpday, but when I found a few excellent reviews already here I changed my mind. Now I've changed my mind again. Although existing reviews express many of my problems with this movie, they do not adequately cover the most important issue.

Although reviewers who liked this movie have correctly noted that it is not about being gay--not even about "going" gay--this movie does present a vivid and disturbing picture of most straight men's attitude toward male homosexuality. To them, sex between two men is deeply repugnant, grossly unnatural and disgusting. The prospect of themselves touching another man sexually is so disturbing that they pee in their pants and act like terrified babies. Is that funny? Not to me. Is seeing it enacted brilliantly on screen enlightening and liberating? Not to me. I've seen it all my life.

I'm going to assume (because it's almost surely true) that the vast majority of Humpday's ardent fans are women, both straight and lesbian, and probably some straight men who consider themselves liberated and enlightened enough to laugh at the foibles of their less enlightened brothers or even at themselves in their own pre-liberation pasts. I suppose I have to allow also for a few self-loathing gay men, because I know they're out there. 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. Those straight men who under ideal conditions are wonderfully tolerant of male homosexuality run away in disgust if it gets too close to them personally. It's not unlike the old liberal hypocrisy of advocating racial integration as long as they don't try to move in next door or marry our daughter.

It's never wrong to expose hypocrisy or shallow virtue. It's never wrong to shine the light of truth into the dark, nasty recesses of fear and hatred in all our lives. Humpday does that brilliantly. For the billions of men who are like the two in this move, watching it could be a blessing of incalculable value. And I would never want to deprive the longsuffering and universally abused female majority of any opportunity to see how fundamentally flawed and foolish their men can be. I just don't enjoy watching it myself, and here's why:

I am a gay man. Having sex with another man is as natural and healthy to me as breathing. The prospect of sex with a woman is as unnatural and repugnant to me as sex with each other is to the guys in Humpday. But I would never want a woman to have to sit through a movie that shows her brutally and graphically how very disgusting she is to me sexually. However well-adjusted she may be, being told that she disgusts me could hurt her, unnecessarily, and I wouldn't want to do that.

That's exactly how Humpday makes me feel. It reminds me that the world is full of very powerful and likable men who find me disgusting, who would rather die than have to be like me or even risk seeming to be like me, and who would rather have ME die than get too close to them. What I AM disgusts and repels them.

It doesn't matter that the movie is not advocating that attitude. By simply reminding me how prevalent that attitude is, it digs into old wounds and causes me pain that does not add anything good to me.

I don't NEED to be reminded how much straight men despise me underneath whatever civilized veneer they may have put on, any more than African Americans need to be reminded how most in the white majority REALLY feel about them inside. It's painful, and although it IS important information, I'm not one of the ones who needs to see it.

So I appreciate Humpday's artistic excellence. It is one of the most powerful and well-realized movies I've ever seen. But it's not for me or for anyone like me, any more than a beautifully executed movie about rape would entertain or enlighten a victim of rape.

****PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD****

Though we never really know why the two male leads care about each other, it becomes obvious when they reunite at the beginning of the movie that the husband has far more interest in his friend than his wife. It could be because the husband feels trapped in his mapped-out life, or that he has stronger emotional/sexual feelings for his friend (but let society walk him down his expected path), or maybe because his wife seems such a tight-ass.

When the movie gets the opportunity to explore this, it DOES go to a promised extreme conclusion that the two men will have sex. The movie leaves it tantalizingly ambiguous WHY this is going to happen (the wife thinks her husband just has to get the gay thing out of him!), but truly falters at this point.

The husband appears to want to go further; his friend cannot seem to. Their idea of using this project to further "express their love" loses it way, and they slip back behind societal boundaries of what is proper, correct, and masculine.

To me, there is nothing learned here than that straight men still don't have it together enough to be in love. In fact, the movie ends on the saddest note...that the friends will likely never be able to face each other again after...daring...to cross an emotional line.

So...not much of a comedy to me. A somewhat well-made study in homosexual panic taken to the edge...with the characters falling from the cliff.

In the low-budget but nicely produced "Humpday", young marrieds Ben and Anna (Mark Duplass and Alycia Delmore) are thrown for a loop when Ben's old college buddy Andrew (Joshua Leonard) drops into their lives, still very much living the whatever-goes slacker life from the two buddies' school days.

Don't get too distracted by the intentionally over-the-top central plotline involving Andrew and Ben's harebrained idea to shoot a very unusual erotic art film for a local film festival, and just enjoy all the great conversations (in turns sharp, funny, and heartbreaking) between Ben, Anna, and Andrew about responsibility, compromise, dreams, and life in general.

I'm going to keep my eye out for any future work by the film's writer and director, Lynn Shelton.