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Directed by Lynn Shelton’s
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Humpday I
seem to be two generations away from enjoying Lynn Shelton’s film
“Humpday.” The first generation is about the
absurdity of the premise – two heterosexual men decide to make a porn
film about the two of them having sex.
The second generation has to do with the impossibility of two
heterosexual men actually having sex with each other. Not,
I assure you, that they could not and would not – both of which are
painfully on view here in “Humpday,”
but because they are both presented as totally scared of both the act and its
implications for the future of their own heterosexuality. And if you will recall, it takes at
least one of them to have an erection in order to do the deed. Since we know from the beginning of
the film that neither of them is capable of doing it, the film becomes an
hour and a half of adolescent jokes about not doing it. Mark
Duplass is Ben, married to Anna (Alycia Delmore), and they are
both trying to have a baby. Late
one night his old friend Andrew (Joshua Leonard) from college shows up at
their suburban house unannounced.
Andrew takes Ben to a kind of swinger’s party – right out
of the sixties, I should say – where everybody lies around drinking and
smoking pot. Andrew tries to get
it on with two women and their sex toys, but finds himself
unable to go through with it.
Mark, though, is enjoying this return to college life, while Anna is
at home with the stuffed pork chops for the two boys that she has made for
them. I kept wondering why she
didn’t call Ben on his cell phone, or why he didn’t call her
– no matter; it would have been a roadblock in the momentum of the
film. Finally,
the two boys take a hotel room and a camera to record the deed for posterity
and for Seattle’s “Stranger” magazine, which apparently
promotes “Humpday.” . What happens, or doesn’t happen,
I will not give away. I will say,
though, that you shouldn’t be prepared for any last-minute
surprises. The end. |