http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/btm/feature/2009/01/17/sundance_1/By Andrew O’HehirSaturday, Jan. 17, 2009 07:20 ESTDude + dude = porno!Mark Duplass (left, as Ben) and
Joshua Leonard (as Andrew) in "Humpday."
PARK CITY, Utah --(Sundance )(....)
If there's an early candidate for Sundance breakout hit, that would be Seattle filmmaker
Lynn Shelton's third feature
"Humpday," a subtle and intelligent picture that blends dudely comedy and adult relationship drama. It premiered here on Friday afternoon to a packed house that surfed along with every laugh line and every squirm. If you want a frame of reference, Shelton's clearly seen the films of
Nicole Holofcener,
Mike Leigh and the early
Woody Allen, but gives those influences her own Pacific Northwest spin. Although it's based on improvisation and shot without a screenplay,
"Humpday" moves propulsively forward, as former college hell-raiser buds Ben (
Mark Duplass) and Andrew (
Joshua Leonard) come ever closer to fulfilling their mutual dare: making an amateur porn film, together, with no other participants.
I'm not sure how wide Duplass' acting range is -- I don't know that he could be an action hero, or play Shakespeare -- but he sure is great at playing self-deluded doofuses forced by some life crisis to ever-so-slightly grow up. Also known as half of the
Duplass brothers' filmmaking team (
"Baghead," "The Puffy Chair" ), here he's a 30ish Seattle yuppie who's settled into Gap pleated pants, married life and homeownership, with fatherhood right around the corner. One night everything changes, when Ben and his wholesome wife, Anna (marvelously played by
Alycia Delmore), are awakened by the ringing doorbell.
It's Andrew, showing up unannounced at 1:30 a.m. from Mexico City and Chiapas and Morocco and wherever the hell else. He's hyped-up and jabbering, he's decided on impulse to drop in on his best bud, and from his first seconds in the household we can tell -- and Anna can really tell -- that he's a destabilizing influence. There's clearly unfinished business or a submerged grudge between Ben and Andrew. Ben thinks Andrew has become a rootless fuck-up, and Andrew thinks Ben has become an emasculated square. We never actually learn what version of technically oriented office job Ben performs; he starts to tell people a couple of times and never finishes the sentence.
Within 24 hours of Andrew's arrival, he and Ben are getting ludicrously drunk at the house of a self-appointed Dionysian bisexual chick (deliciously played by Shelton, the director) whom Andrew picked up at a cafe -- all while Anna pines at home, having cooked her famous pork chops for two guys who aren't showing up. That's where their brilliant scheme emerges: To win the amateur porn contest hosted by the
Stranger (Seattle's estimable alt-weekly), Ben and Andrew will do the deed, dude on dude, at a site Ben dubs the "Bonin' Motel."
Ben and Andrew do indeed end up behind closed doors in the Bonin' Motel, but since I have no idea when
"Humpday" will be reaching regular viewers, it'd be unfair to tell you anything more. (Believe me, it will get picked up for distribution, and sooner rather than later.) Whatever they do or don't do in there, this fresh, funny and highly perceptive flick isn't about how these guys and other male-bonded pairs are really gay, or about any other simplistic agenda question.
Instead, it's a film about things far more difficult to define, like the tiny lies we tell ourselves and those we love, or the impossibility of making sense of all the different and contradictory aspects of one adult personality. Shelton moves confidently from Seattle hipster self-satire to moments of profound emotional discovery; her directorial eye, aptitude with actors and impulse for stripped-down storytelling mark her as a major arrival on the independent scene.