The Details

Humpday

Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard, Alycia Delmore

Directed by Lynn Shelton

Rated R

Beyond the Weekly

Humpday

Rotten Tomatoes: Humpday

IMDb: Humpday

You’d hardly expect to see Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson in a movie making out with each other or discussing the logistics of filming themselves having sex, but most of what else goes on in the acclaimed indie comedy Humpday (a big hit at Sundance and Cannes before coming to CineVegas this past June) is sort of the low-key version of one of those bro comedies from the Apatow/Stiller overlapping band of filmmakers. Writer-director Shelton crafts a ramshackle story about old buddies Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard, who has a very Wilsonian drawl), reunited after years apart, who concoct a drunken plan to enter an amateur porn festival with a movie featuring, in their words, “two straight dudes bonin’.”

Exactly why they want to do this is never quite clear, but it soon becomes a matter of pride, to prove that Ben hasn’t turned into a suburban prude, and that Andrew really is the daring bohemian he fancies himself. Despite the low-fi aesthetic and naturalistic dialogue, most of the movie plays like a more relaxed version of something like I Love You, Man or The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but not really in a bad way. It’s funny and sweet and curious about the nature of dude friendship, although Shelton, like her characters, equivocates a little too much about the eventual outcome of the story. If it were Rudd and Wilson, things would be a little tidier—and maybe a little more satisfying.