Conceptually Funny

There are a lot of buddy comedies out there, but there are very few
wherein the buddies decide to make the beast with four balls.
Humpday is that comedy.

I’ve rarely seen a comedy so funny (or a comedy that’s funny, but
that’s another issue), which in itself is worth noting, and I’ve rarely
seen a film that’s as thoughtful (or a film that’s thoughtful …). But
what’s interesting about Humpday is that its thoughtfulness and
its funniness are united. Basically, it’s conceptually funny, which
produces a unique effect: During some of the scenes, you could laugh at
any point. There’s no punchline, but the weirdness of the underlying
idea just pops out from time to time. In fact, when I saw the film,
laughter traveled around the theater in pops and snaps, as though
everyone was getting the joke at a different moment, and then getting
it again a moment later.

Part of the weirdness comes from the clever concept. The story
starts out with a standard dude-comedy premise: Ben is a 30-something
city planner, husband and homeowner. In the middle of the night, his
college buddy Andrew arrives, uninvited, at his home. Andrew has
extended his Kerouac days with motorcycles, unfinished art projects and
an inflated sense of his own coolness, and now he’s in the United
States to seek funding, or just to rub his awesome moto-life in Ben’s
suburban face.

A night of drinking ensues, and the two buddies somehow wind up
challenging each other to make a porn video. Starring themselves. As
the only participants.

So it’s your basic two-straight-guys-decide-to-make-a-gay-porn-movie
movie. Or is it?

In fact, it’s not, even if there were such a thing. While the
initial movement of the film follows the formula you’d expect from that
setup, it evolves into something much stranger and deeper.

The script was partially improvised by the excellent cast. Mark
Duplass, who’s made a name for himself in the mumble-core underground,
stars as Ben. Duplass was better than his material (which he wrote) in
The Puffy Chair, and he’s matured as an actor. But the
standout performance here comes from Alycia Delmore as his wife,
Anna.

The complexity she conveys in her reaction shots is both realistic
and hilarious. She’s helped by the fact that director Lynn Shelton
knows how to film a conversation. Instead of focusing on the speaker,
Shelton captures the entire interaction, getting a lot of mileage out
of her performers’ abilities to respond, and maintaining a naturalism
that’s well-suited to the small scale of the film.

This allows Delmore to steal most of her scenes, even when she
doesn’t have the lion’s share of the dialogue. The look on her face
when she begins to realize what her husband is proposing will stick
with you long after you’ve left the theater, vomited in a nearby
trashcan, and fallen asleep with your shoes on.

In spite of the comedic force of these scenes, and the absurdity of
the premise, the relationship between Ben and Anna seems utterly
believable. Instead of the sort of stock characters you’d get if this
were a Judd Apatow film (and Apatow is punching his File of Jokes for
Horny Teens in frustration for not thinking of this film’s central
conceit), all of the characters are rich with complexity.

The expected turn is that Ben and Andrew, when they sober up, will
be unable to back out of their plan, because neither will want to admit
that they’re not cool enough to go through with it. And, in fact, that
expected turn happens. But it’s not simply a question of one-upmanship.
As they start to think about it, they not only want to deceive each
other about their misgivings; they begin to successfully deceive
themselves. Ben, especially, develops a long rationale for why he
should do a gay porno with his best friend.

It’s a way of examining the character’s life, his regrets and his
narrowing sense of himself. But—and I think this is the
miraculous thing—it doesn’t interfere with the laughs. In
standard R-rated comedies, some heartwarming/character-building stuff
is pasted on and acts as a break from the gags. In Humpday,
there are no gags; there’s just the slow, rolling laugh that comes from
the discomfort of the absurd situation the characters have placed
themselves in. And even the means by which they arrive there doesn’t
seem forced: Given the circumstances, it makes perfect sense that these
two men would challenge each other to appear in a gay-sex video. This
creates an almost singular effect wherein the parts of the film that
are deep and personal and natural are also the parts that are the
funniest.

The film’s success shows director Shelton’s intelligence, and the
extent to which the actors thought about the characters. Giving the
performers the chance to create their own dialogue allows them to own
the characters and keep them self-consistent. The evolving premise
forces them to be funny. And the intimacy of the filming style
reinforces both aspects.

Humpday works, because it accepts its small size, refuses to
pander and finds a way to make humor without making jokes. I wish more
films were as open to experimentation as this one, but even more
importantly, I wish more films were as successful at following through
on their premises, and as smart in setting themselves up.

This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2009.