A movie about gay porn without the gays or the porn.

Director Lynn Shelton is great. I’m actually starting to believe that Sundance really is returning to its old-school support of independent film. Shelton makes it clear that she makes films as an artist. Even her way of funding films is more closely related to non-profit arts efforts than traditional film funding.

Humpday is her third film and the first to screen at Sundance. Here’s the premise. Two college buddies reconnect after not having seen each other for years. One is a free-spirited, wanna-be artist who’s spent plenty of time in Mexico exploring his creative side. The other has gone mainstream; getting married, buying a home, and embracing suburbia. On a drunken night with some sexually-fluid women, the two decide to participate in an amateur porn festival. But they realize that in order to compete, they must do something ground breaking. They decide that ground breaking equals two straight men having sex with each other.

OK, the plot is unlikely. Even the director admitted that. But somehow, it works and Humpday is believable. The director noted that while every scene (except for the last) was carefully planned, the dialogue was mostly improvised. And it was surprisingly natural. In fact, the natural dialogue made the movie. And the wife’s struggle with her husband’s sudden irresponsibility was fantastic.

Spoiler alert: I’m about to reveal the ending of the movie. The final scene takes place in a hotel room where the two male leads are supposed to film their man-on-man action. (Keep in mind this is the only scene in the movie the director chose not to script; she just let the actors decide the outcome.) In the end, the two men can’t go through with it.

Now before I get all critical on this film, I just want to say I really liked it. It was fresh, funny, and presented a new point of view. But I think it’s pretending to be something it’s not. The movie wants to be ground breaking in it’s liberation of sexuality. But in the end it just presents the same old clichés. Women who are sexually fluid, who are willing to have sex with other women and with men, are not only OK, but kinda hot. Two men having sex is uncomfortable, squirmy, even gross.

I’ve made this argument to other men who saw the movie and they disagree. But the movie sets up a different ending. One of the male characters admits that earlier in his life he had an experience where he was sexually aroused by another man. The other male lead is a freewheeling, open-minded artist who seems intent on finally following through with something. And throughout the movie, the chemistry between the two is sexual even though it’s obvious they’re straight. Yet when they kiss, the characters disappear and are replaced by their straight actors. We’re suddenly aware it’s impossible for two straight men to get naked and get it up. For me, that was a cop out.