Straight friends Ben and Andrew (Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard) want to make art … by having sex on film. Photo: Magnolia Pictures
Friendships between gay men are weird: Seemingly, there's always that hard-to-shake sexual intensity no matter how platonic the bond. Straight dudes don't obviously worry about such trouble, unless they're hard heads who don't want to wimp out of a I'll-do-you dare. So goes the strange and true-to-life relationship of married, kid-ready Ben and freewheeling nomad Andrew (perfectly played by Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard), college pals who reunite after 10 years apart and decide to go gay for art's sake, in the buzzed-about low-budgeter "Humpday."
Andrew's arty venture – his "original" genius is two straight guys sexing for an amateur porn contest – starts with pot and booze (how could an idea like that not?) at a mini pansexual shindig. Ben doesn't want to be a wuss, so he puts his balls out. Bet's on.
What follows in director Lynn Shelton's touching bro-bonding film, where the awkwardness lingers like an eggy fart in an elevator shared by two strangers, is an unexpectedly sensitive farce. It morphs from debaucherous, one-joke silly to a charming relationship-challenging tale of a pair of friends looking to meet in the middle of their polar-opposite lives.
"Humpday," as it grazes the core of mainstream bromantic comedies like Kevin Smith's "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" or "I Love You, Man," isn't rooted in slapdash schtick, and it avoids mangling its unrealistic premise into a stupid stand-up routine; there's an infectious, relatable authenticity to both guys.
And a woman's behind it all, as Shelton, who also wrote the film (and even plays a bisexual in it), insightfully uncovers the male psyche – their stubbornly macho ways, sexual insecurity and identity and this uncomfortable paper-thin line that some straight dudes tiptoe around to show love for each other. But Shelton's perceptive man-driven dramedy comes out of the single-joke set-up, crushing taboos and tenderly observing friendship. We laugh a lot. We learn a lot. We love these confused people.
Shelton even subtly pushes the bisexuality buttons, as Ben hilariously confesses his "moment" to Andrew: He rented a Frank Lloyd Wright documentary from a cute video-store clerk, lied that he really liked it … and then had to watch the other nine parts.
These chit-chatty vignettes, shot handy-cam style with a MTV's "The Real World" intimacy, is really the foundation for "Humpday" – and why these easy-to-associate-with people pop right out of the film: We know folks like this, in one way or another. Hey, maybe that's been you before.
Ben's wife especially is so richly realized – subtly acted by newcomer Alycia Delmore – and grounds what is, at face value, a ridiculously impractical premise. Few wives would let their husband do a dude (unless, maybe, they're in the room "supervising") – but Anna, as much as she doesn't understand it, does. And we believe she earnestly wants him to.
So, they talk about it. And then they talk some more. Thankfully, their engaging, witty and off-the-cuff dialogue is reality-show real – much of the film, allegedly, was improvised, and that's easy to believe. Ben and Andrew – for all their sexual ambiguity and moronic behavior, as Ben puts it – could've been guests on "Dr. Phil," the host trying to help Anna grasp her husband's so-called art project.
Waist-deep in the drama, when Ben finally has a sit-down with Anna to explain this "art project" to her – but doesn't follow through – and then Andrew, over Scotch with Anna, spills it, the film falls into hyper-funny mode. That uncomfortably hilarious momentum carries us to the inevitable will-they-or-won't-they? end scene, where the guys try to answer all the what-ifs, whys and hows, until Ben finally tells Andrew, "We need to not talk about it, and just go at it."
Sometimes it's tough to fight the urge to think the same about the film's patience-testing talk time, but like gay sex, straight sex, or maybe even straight man-and-man sex, the film's foreplay leads to a gratifying – and, uh, touching – payoff. B+
'Humpday'
Opens Sept. 18
Michigan Theater
603 E. Liberty St., Ann Arbor
http://www.michtheater.org
