Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 130
Fresh: 102 | Rotten: 28
Observant and insightful, this indie comedy takes a different tack on the "bromance" but still makes a point without sermonizing.
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 6
Observant and insightful, this indie comedy takes a different tack on the "bromance" but still makes a point without sermonizing.
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User Ratings: 17,959
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My Effortless Brilliance writer/director Lynn Shelton takes the topic of male bonding to new extremes with this comedy about two best friends who make an unusual pact that both may soon come to regret. Back in college, Andrew and Ben were inseparable. Years later, Andrew comes knocking on Ben's door and discovers that his former roommate is all grown up -- married and planning to have a baby. Meanwhile, Andrew never settled down at all, and has spent the past decade partying and traveling the
Jul 10, 2009 Wide
Nov 17, 2009
$0.3M
Magnolia Pictures
All Critics (130) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (105) | Rotten (28) | DVD (4)
What's intriguing in this set-up is what the dare might teach the guys about the nature of sexuality.
Getting to the showdown is a fine and funny journey.
The addlepated 'Humpday," wherein charcters laugh and laugh and laugh. So what's the joke?
Writer/director Lynn Shelton's sexual sitcom is a lighthearted satire of machismo and insecurity where the laughs emerge from restless, uncomfortable silences.
Humpday succeeds by grounding its risqué premise in the awkwardness and humor of real people trying their damnedest to communicate. A lot.
While at times the improvisational dialogue sounds like audio filler, the three leads are poignant and perceptive. Likewise Shelton's film, considerably more complex than those 'bros will be bros' comedies of male bonding.
So what is Humpday really about? If anything, the power of women
While the dare itself seems almost contrived to make the movie happen, what transpires afterward is a very universal experience for people who take stock of their lives for the first time after college.
Some nice performances highlight a strangely-paced exploration of the male identity and its inability to cope with unique situations.
It's attractively performed, fairly amusing and worked out in a convincing if predictable way.
The sort of film that Kevin Smith must dream of making. It's sweet, piquant, bold and intelligent, balancing its outrageous concept with relationships and conversations that are all too believable.
One could only feel sorry for Alycia Delmore as the pliant wife of the silly husband, who goes along with his irritatingly neurotic friend's idea.
...a compelling and thoroughly original modern comedy.
Lynn Shelton's film%u2014a promising premise in search of a payoff with more nourishment than room-service steak and milkshakes%u2014frequently dazzles and delights, but once the look-alike boxers come into frame, the only verb left is disappoints.
One of the ten best home video releases of 2009, and one of the year's best films period.
What could have ended up as crass, cringy and possibly offensive actually results in a very funny and realistic treatment of the premise.
What finally lifts 'Humpday' above macho junk like 'The Hangover' is its all-inclusive warmth: for all their adolescent self-delusion, Shelton truly loves these characters. And after 90 minutes, so will you.
Immensely enjoyable, an insightful and humorous depiction of complicated, yet ultimately simple, male drives.
Humpday is a high-concept comedy made for low-budget money that might just be one of the funniest films of the year.
The ending of the movie is an awful let-down, which is a shame: the film had been weirdly involving and Alycia Delmore is good as Ben's outraged wife.
The film does a fair amount of squirming itself, but not before giving honest and hilarious thought to the carnal intricacies of the whole project.
Shelton has been tagged as an extremely adept chronicler of the associations between men. It's fair to say that the director is good on relationships, period.
Okay, if you're like a friend of mine, who finds scenes of extreme awkwardness so uncomfortable that you're not even willing to sit through them (squirming), then stay well away from this film. If however, you're like me, and willing to laugh at the holes that machismo can sometimes dig for itself, you'll laugh your
March 23, 2012Super Reviewer
Worthy if minor indie love-in which runs out of steam when you realise where its going and I never really bought the contrived set up.
August 31, 2010
Super Reviewer
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