"You don't have to have a fuckin' hard-on to bungee jump."

This theme week thing is just as questionable as I suspected it would be. When you haven't seen a movie yet and you just go by a description to put it in a category, sometimes you're going to get it wrong. I guess you could call Humpday a very dark comedy, but that would be pushing it. Based on the subject matter of two old friends (both straight males) who decide to have sex with each other on camera in the name of art, Brandon thought it was going to be some kind of slapstick farce. Not so much. This is not to say we didn't like it. We were both really impressed by the script, especially the authentic dialog, a lot of which seemed to be improvised and was very natural. Brandon was particularly struck by the chemistry and interaction between Ben, and his wife Anna. They felt very much like a real married couple as opposed to a typical "movie" married couple. This movie is extremely talky but I really liked all of the topics that were discussed because I find the idea of rebelling against your nature and/or the image you portray to be fascinating.

In one of the scenes between Ben and Andrew, they both come to a realization and try to convince each other that they are not so easily shoved into neat little "picket fence" v. "Kerouac" boxes. That hit me particularly hard, as I've really been struggling with this sort of thing a lot lately. Why do we have to fit into these small, uber-defined roles that certain aspects of our personalities dictate? Why can't we all be multi-faceted and have 10 different kinds of friends and enjoy them all equally? Why does the way someone looks have to predicate their behavior? Why do so many of us allow society to outline the type of person we're supposed to be based on one or two surface level pieces of ourselves? Ben and Andrew have to come to terms with the fact that everyone really does live in the gray zone, no matter how badly society wants to force us to be black and white. I loved the scene where [spoiler] Andrew showed up to have sex with the woman he met in the coffee shop and was totally weirded out by the fact that she wanted her girlfriend and all of her "hardware" to be involved. Despite always believing that he was open minded and above the "square" mentality, he practically ran out of there because he was so uncomfortable. [/spoiler] I think everyone can relate to that moment in life when you are confronted with the fact that maybe you're not exactly the person you thought you were. What does a person do with that information? How do you move forward? Do you allow yourself to be whoever it is you really are, or do you try to force yourself back into that slot that's been designated for you, whether it be self imposed or societally influenced?

Who knows if the creators of this movie really intended it to be funny or a serious commentary, but I got a lot out of it and we both thought it was a very good movie.