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A bromantic comedy par excellence, Humpday pushes the concept of male bonding and male competition (so often intertwined) to its end point. Two old buddies, Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard), reunite after a few years' time. Mark is living the bourgeois life in Seattle, with a home, a wife (Alycia Delmore), and a responsible job. Andrew's just blown in from vagabonding around Mexico, and his bohemian cred is as thick as his beard. When the buds drunkenly vow to participate in a local amateur porn-movie contest with themselves as stars, the stage is set for a game of staredown: neither guy wants to be the first
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A bromantic comedy par excellence, Humpday pushes the concept of male bonding and male competition (so often intertwined) to its end point. Two old buddies, Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard), reunite after a few years' time. Mark is living the bourgeois life in Seattle, with a home, a wife (Alycia Delmore), and a responsible job. Andrew's just blown in from vagabonding around Mexico, and his bohemian cred is as thick as his beard. When the buds drunkenly vow to participate in a local amateur porn-movie contest with themselves as stars, the stage is set for a game of staredown: neither guy wants to be the first to blink and admit he isn't quite open-minded or free-swinging enough for the stunt. (One large roadblock: Ben needs to actually convey the information about the film project to his wife, a dilemma that leads to some of the movie's funniest scenes.) Director Lynn Shelton works in an improvisatory style, figuring out the dialogue with the actors and creating a loose, frowzy atmosphere within scenes. That sense of verisimilitude helps sell the whopper of a premise, but what's even more impressive is Shelton's laser-like sense of male insecurity and rivalry (also on view in her previous picture, My Effortless Brilliance). Duplass (from The Puffy Chair) and Leonard (a Blair Witch trekker) play this to the hilt, particularly in the gloriously uncomfortable climatic scene, when push, shall we say, is going to have to come to shove. Humpday was a Sundance breakout in 2009, coming out of nowhere (i.e., Seattle, Shelton's home base) and snagging a summer release. And why not? If the specific plot isn't exactly a universal experience, the movie's underlying anxieties certainly are. --Robert Horton
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Manufacturer: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Release date: 17 November 2009
EAN: 0876964002325 UPC: 876964002325
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