Humpday
Bromance; a twentieth century term that describes the rambunctious platonic relationship between a man and “his boys.” Although there have always been jokes about the borderline homoeroticism inherent to bromance, no one has ever presented it in the way writer/director Lynn Shelton has in Humpday.
Just as married couple Ben (Mark Duplass) and Anne (Alycia Delmore) call it a night, Ben’s old college friend Andrew (Josh Leonard) shows up unannounced. Although the two revel in their shared past, its clear that both men are in two entirely different places and have little in common; Ben has settled into a suburban life complete with house, white picket fence, and the intention of raising a family, while Andrew has been living life on the road a la Kerouac as a wandering bohemian artist.
While out at a party, Ben and Andrew begin to drunkenly discuss Hump Fest, a local event in which amateurs submit artsy pornographic videos, and come up with the idea of videotaping themselves having sex with each other, as the idea of two heterosexual men engaged in homosexual activity is particularly edgy. The next day, both men continue discussing the idea and become obsessed with it for different reasons; Andrew wants to finally see an artistic idea through to completion, and Ben wants to rebel against his own vanilla temperament that accompanies suburban living. Continue reading