Humpday by Lynn Shelton

Do-it-yourself cinema is a fast-growing movement, especially in America, where micro-budget filmmakers such as Joe Swanberg and his gang gather together to make their indie films. Lynn Shelton has one foot in this approach, stripping down her means of production to the fundamentals. The focus is on the characters: actors have the freedom to move within their cinematic personas and so deliver a more realistic performance. However, what sets Shelton apart is her ability to avoid the “mumblecore”, meaning that dialogues have coherence and rhythm, with no gaps of intellectual insinuation.

Humpday is a funny buddy movie in which two school friends, Ben and Andrew, reunite for the first time in ten years. In between booze and over-excitement, they decide to have sex on camera. No, they are not gay. “This is beyond gay; it’s an art project” for a porn film festival. Once the decision is taken, Ben has to tell his wife and the comic snowball starts to roll. It’s actually very amusing to watch two straight men trying to handle their masculinity and fear of taking the homosexual step. But what gives the final push is that for both men this experiment is a way of dealing with reaching their thirties, and whatever adjustments that age entails.

It must be the well-written script, but also the natural acting, which makes the characters so three-dimensional. Although even the digital feel of the image is handled in a way that never alienates, rather offering signs of intimacy. Considering the fact that humour is subjective and comedy a delicate genre to explore, Humpday succeeds in making you giggle with a warning: “Do not try this at home”.

Eftihia Stefanidi