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Humpday

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by: Lynn Shelton
Directed by: Lynn Shelton
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 10, 2009
DVD: November 17, 2009
Running Time: 94 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for some strong sexual content, pervasive language and a scene of drug use
Starring Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard, Alycia Delmore, Lynn Shelton, and Trina Willard
It’s been a decade since Ben and Andrew 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, 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 Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli
Humpday succeeds, often beautifully, by grounding its risque premise in the awkwardness and humor of real people trying their damnedest to communicate. A lot.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Anna's thoughts matter because, as played by the wonderfully nuanced newcomer Alycia Delmore, the no-bull responses of this perceptive woman are a key to Humpday's sly, wised-up feminist outlook.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Humpday carefully raises the stakes until it hits a finale loaded with humor, tenderness, and delicious ambiguity. It’s like "Old Joy" by way of Judd Apatow.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
The movie’s unblinking observation of a friendship put to the test is amused, queasy making, kindhearted and unfailingly truthful.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Funny, yes, but also observant and thought-provoking.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Humpday mixes hilarity with upset as the irresistible force of male pride meets the immovable object of sexual identity.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
There's a wonderful chemistry between them -- though the film wisely allows Duplass and Delmore an equally intimate connection. Choices like that enable the modest Humpday to capture the lives of its protagonists more credibly than any Hollywood-manufactured comedy of recent vintage.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Robert Abele
Unlike a lot of institutional raunch in today's comedy, Humpday finds laughs out of what is rarely made explicit between buddies.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
One of the best indie films of the year, Humpday is a lighter descendant of "sex lies and videotape," yet burrows just as deep into the male psyche and the human capacity for self-deceit.
Read Full Review >NPR Bob Mondello
I'm guessing Humpday will make its natural, easygoing leading men -- Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard -- much sought after.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
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.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Cammila Albertson
The movie does open up a lot of heretofore vacuum-sealed cans of worms. Does sex represent a sort of grand completeness that men secretly yearn for in their friendships?
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Humpday sells its admittedly far-fetched premise by illustrating how men often can't help but behave like stubborn children in the company of their friends -- even when the stakes are raised to ridiculous levels.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter
Humpday is mostly foreplay. But isn't that usually the most fun anyway? It certainly is in this film.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
While at times the improvisational dialogue sounds like audio filler, the three leads are poignant and perceptive.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Jan Stuart
Delmore, Duplass and Leonard work up a loose-limbed, improvisatory energy, but Humpday radiates with the sheen of a film that has been thought out within an inch of its witty and insightful life.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Reuniting an uptight married man with a footloose old pal, Lynn Shelton's third feature offers a (much) more extreme version of Kelly Reichardt's "Old Joy," also a sort of buddy movie, also shot in Seattle.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
As for that central question: Yep, it’s art, all right. One only wishes they’d gotten down to the business of it sooner.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Maybe Humpday needed more characters and a less claustrophobic atmosphere. Maybe the film needed to be bolder and break a few boundaries itself. Maybe it could have better explained why these two men still need to be friends. Whatever the case, it certainly needed a better payoff.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
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.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Few kinds of art are more boring than the insistently transgressive, and few movies are more boring than Humpday.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Kevin S gave it a9:
An almost perfect movie. The acting is amazing, and it's a true to life, unHollywood type movie.
Norm gave it a4:
It occurred to me as the unrealistic story of Humpday rolled out that the feelings I was having are probably similar to the feelings women have had watching movie after movie made by men attempting to portray how women approach sex and relationships. There is just no way the idea propelling this plot would get as far down the road as Seattle writer/director Lynn Shelton wants us to believe. Not much rang true so for me no emotional involvement, no empathy and not much enjoyment. The characters and story are based in Seattle but the city is not a factor.
