Humpday typifies the low-level indie film where characters talk out silly ideas they don’t believe in anyway, just the pop confusion in their heads.
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
Initially refreshing, witty and awkwardly funny, but it morphs into a shallow, tedious, lazy and ultimately forgettable comedy.
The problem is not the farfetched contrivance of Humpday, but how unmoored it seems from anything but self-satisfied cuteness.
Unfortunately, Humpday is held back by the blandness of both Ben and Andrew. Their friendship, which is supposed to be along the lines of the uneasy bond in the terrific Old Joy, never comes into focus in their dull, rambling scenes together.
Sadly, the most interesting characters in "Humpday" are not the main focuses of the story.
Has moments of insight and cleverness, but it's pretty threadbare in every sense.
The scenes between husband and wife are spectacularly awkward and arresting, though the movie grows more dubious the nearer the guys get to their shooting session in a local hotel room.
Shelton's low-fi treatment helps soften it, but too many overcooked moments still seep through.
The addlepated 'Humpday," wherein charcters laugh and laugh and laugh. So what's the joke?
If I wanted to hear would-be counter culture yuppies yell at each other I'd hang out with my own loser friends.
Possibilities are at least flirted with, if not realized, the results waver between interesting and tedious, only to come up with the inevitable lemon of a resolution.
Few kinds of art are more boring than the insistently transgressive, and few movies are more boring than Humpday.
...plays as if director Lynn Shelton watched Kelly Reichardt's "Old Joy" and decided to turn it into a comedy. It's abrupt ending plays like a filmmaker who has run out of idea.
One of the big problems in Humpday for this viewer is the characters, none of whom really engages a viewer's imagination or emotion.
A mumblecore bore about two heterosexual men, one living a conventional married life and the other a bohemian bachelor, who decide to make a gay porn movie on a dare. It would have been far more interesting, I'm afraid.
Ultimately devoid of anything much to say about sexuality or friendship.
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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