Recollecting About the Hump

Just a quick post before I head out to see Guillermo Arriaga’s The Burning Plain, but I feel a little remiss for not including Lynn Shelton’s Humpday in my week two recap yesterday. The reason for this is that, in all honesty, I still can’t quite decide what I totally think about the much-buzzed comedy. It’s a good film, sometimes even a great one, but there is something about it that just keeps making me reticent to give it a whole-hearted recommendation.

The film revolves around two best friends, Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard), who decide during the middle of a rather rambunctious party to take make a film for The Stranger’s annual amateur porn competition, Humpfest. They seem to think the idea of two straight men getting it on would be something akin to art, the duo almost daring one another to go through with the idea even though not a heck of a lot of thought has gone into their thought processes.

The movie has got to be the most ‘Seattle’ film I can possibly remember seeing. Shelton gets the look, feel and the vibe of the city absolutely spot-on, and she does it by refusing to insert a single shot of the Space Needle, too. I felt like I knew these people, knew exactly which neighborhoods they came from and/or were visiting, the whole thing ringing of an authenticity so many other projects strive for yet never are able to achieve.

Yet, as much love and discussion as this movie has generated since its Sundance debut, I found the first half more than a little bit frustrating. It’s a talk-heavy film and that’s an understatement, and I kept getting a Kevin Smith Clerks-like feeling from it all I had trouble embracing.

The thing is, the second half is pretty close to marvelous. Starting with a dinner table conversation between the two friends and Ben’s wife Anna (Alycia Delmore), the film starts building in both humor and emotion. It’s still very dialogue heavy but the words suddenly started carrying meaning for me, the layers beginning to peal back to reveal a saga of maturity and lost youth that honestly left me more than a little bit moved.

And yet I still hesitate over Humpday and I really don’t know why. I interviewed Shelton a couple of days back and I timidly didn’t share this reticence with her even though I knew I should have. At the same time, my enthusiasm over the pieces and the performances I liked are nearly without comparison, and speaking with her about those was pretty close to a wonderful joy.

I don’t know. This movie deserves more from me. It’s got a solid script, breezy direction and is acted by the three leads to near perfection. I should have included it yesterday and it is to my embarrassment and my folly that I did not. Bottom line, when it hits theaters in a couple of weeks I think people should check it out, and even if I have reservations here and there that doesn’t mean I still can’t recognize and endorse a thought-provoking comedy when I see one.

(As for the interview, check the main site next week for it, probably Wednesday. I hope to have the article written and up by then.)