Hilariously perceptive.
Humpday (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:96
Fresh:72
Rotten:24
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: Observant and insightful, this indie comedy takes a different tack on the "bromance" but still makes a point without sermonizing.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for some strong sexual content, pervasive language and a scene of drug use.
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Jul 10, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $254,272
Synopsis:
It's been a decade since Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard) were the bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took the alternate route as a...
It's been a decade since Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard) were the bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took the alternate route as a vagabond artist, skipping the globe from Chiapas to Cambodia. When Andrew shows up unannounced on Ben's doorstep, they easily fall back into their old dynamic of macho one-upmanship. Late into the night at a wild party, the two find themselves locked in a mutual dare: to enter an amateur porn contest together. But what kind of boundary-breaking, envelope pushing porn can two straight dudes make? After the booze and "big talk" run out, only one idea remains -- they will have sex together on camera. It's not gay; it's beyond gay. It's not porn; it's art. But how exactly will it work? And more importantly, who will tell Anna (Delmore), Ben's wife?
Writer/director Lynn Shelton, director of My Effortless Brilliance and recipient of the "Someone to Watch Award" at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards, expertly mines the biggest ironies of the male ego to hilarious effect. Humpday is a buddy movie gone wild. --© Magnolia
Starring: Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard, Alycia Delmore, Lynn Shelton
Starring: Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard, Alycia Delmore, Lynn Shelton, Trina Willard
Director: Lynn Shelton
Director: Lynn Shelton
Screenwriter: Lynn Shelton
Producer: Lynn Shelton
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
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Reviews for Humpday
Humpday succeeds by grounding its risqué premise in the awkwardness and humor of real people trying their damnedest to communicate. A lot.
This is an excruciating dramedy of schadenfruede for the anything-goes hipness of the last decade and a half which has devalued contentment as a cop out
Lynn Shelton's breakthrough bromance comedy is funny, sharp and true -- with no preachy sexual politics.
One thing usually that stands out in independent films is the amateurish acting, but that's not the case here. Every performance is right on the money and feels 100% natural.
The film ends up being about not just a really idiotic dare, but about the bounds of friendship and the bonds of marriage — and about much more besides.
There's more believable, raw humanity here than in Michael Bay's entire oeuvre.
A tale of gay chicken slathered with a thick coating of verbal wandering, Humpday is cute, well acted, but exceptionally trying at times, using an aesthetic reserved for realism to push across a trite frat house concept.
A very good dissection of friendship, sexuality, ego, domesticity, and our perceptions about who we are and how far we are willing to go to prove that we are not so easily-defined.
While at times the improvisational dialogue sounds like audio filler, the three leads are poignant and perceptive. Likewise Shelton's film, considerably more complex than those 'bros will be bros' comedies of male bonding.
I find it interesting that that the two best films about men that I’ve seen this summer (The Hurt Locker being the other) have been directed by women.
ultimately plays as behavioral experiment and, slapping their stomachs and chests in nervous rhythm, its leads are prime specimens
Even if the movie doesn't completely work, it's apt to leave you talking about it for days.
Shelton shows great insight into the contradictory mind of the modern man.
Alycia Delmore gives a nuanced performance as Anna, but it's the dumb-as-stumps performances from Duplass and Leonard that make "Humpday" a movie that you can laugh at as much as you laugh with it.
Writer/director Lynn Shelton's sexual sitcom is a lighthearted satire of machismo and insecurity where the laughs emerge from restless, uncomfortable silences.
In Humpday, Andrew can't help but compete with Anna, who has stolen his bro, or more precisely, his slowly receding notion of himself.
Humpday may not be the single best movie I've seen so far this year -- though it's certainly a contender for the title -- but it's without doubt the most surprising.
Lynn Shelton’s marvelous chamber comedy Humpday butts up against the same sort of taboos as Brüno, and in its fumbling, semi-improvised way, it’s equally hilarious and even more subversive.
Latest News for Humpday
July 09, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Bruno is Certified Fresh
This week at the movies, we've got Austrian audacity (Bruno, starring Sacha Baron Cohen) and graduation gratification (I Love You, Beth Cooper, starring Hayden Panettiere and... More...
June 28, 2009:
Edinburgh 2009: RT's 10 Must-See Movies
The Edinburgh Film Festival has come to a close and Rotten Tomatoes thought we'd make a traditional look back over all of the films playing at this year's fest and present to... More...
June 28, 2009:
Edinburgh 2009: Humpday wins RT Award
Humpday, directed by Lynn Shelton, has become the second ever winner of the Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus Award, it was announced today at an awards ceremony in Edinburgh.... More...
May 10, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review ![]()
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