Fuck Buddies

Lynn Shelton’s Humpday is no stranger to The Stranger,
and vice versa. Last September, Shelton became the sixth recipient of
The Stranger‘s annual Genius Award for Film, an honor that
earned the Seattle-bred filmmaker a big cake, a big party, and a $5,000
cash prize. At the time of the 2008 Genius Awards, Shelton was wrapping
up filming on her third feature, Humpday, which takes its name
and central plot device from HUMP!, The Stranger‘s annual
amateur-porn competition, wherein adult films made by locals are
screened for packed houses who rank their favorites. After the final
screening, the master tapes are destroyed before the audience’s eyes.
(As HUMP! host Dan Savage puts it, “Be a porn star for a weekend, not
for the rest of your life on the internet.”)

But these facts—more points of interest than conflicts of
interest—are the least interesting thing about Humpday, a
tiny, local independent film that’s met with international success,
from a splashy premiere at Sundance (where the film earned raves and
sparked a bidding war among distributors) to inclusion in the
Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, where the audience feted
Humpday‘s leading men with a several-minute standing ovation.
Last month, Humpday was the Centerpiece Gala at the 2009 Seattle
International Film Festival, with Shelton named first runner-up for
SIFF’s Best Director honors. This weekend, Humpday begins its
proper theatrical run, and if you’re an appreciator of tiny indie
flicks that pack a surprising punch (aesthetic referents: John
Cassavetes, Chuck & Buck, Nicole Holofcener, “mumblecore”),
you must see Humpday.

As you know, Shelton’s film announces itself with a ridiculous
premise: A pair of thirtysomething, heterosexual male friends decide to
have sex on film and submit the results to an amateur- porn
competition. From this iffy point of departure, Shelton spins a small
cinematic miracle: a deep, hilarious, completely contemporary
relationship comedy that explores with almost scientific precision how
such a ridiculous premise would play out in real life. Crucial to
Humpday‘s success is its style, with writer/director Shelton
continuing her quest for what she calls “total naturalism.” This quest
commenced with Shelton’s second feature, last year’s well-regarded
My Effortless Brilliance, in which Shelton found her desired
naturalism—there’s not a moment in the film that feels
forced—though audiences were reminded that sometimes pure
naturalism leaves something to be desired. (Many of Brilliance‘s
unforced stretches could’ve used some directorial forcing.)

With Humpday, Shelton’s aim for the tiny moments that hold
explosions has improved exponentially, as My Effortless
Brilliance‘s pockets of inspiration are stretched into
Humpday‘s feature-length triumph. The result is a plot-driven
film composed of what feel like found moments—a rich trick that’s
becoming Shelton’s stylistic calling card. But how does one reliably
create moments that feel found?

“Casting is so important,” Shelton told me last month in the SIFF
suite at the W Hotel. While Shelton conceives the basic story, she
says, “the ideas of characters are fleshed out by actors, and the
performers come up with their own words.” Preshoot preparation involves
“talk, texturizing of characters’ backstories, but no rehearsal, just
discussion.” When it’s time to shoot, the actors are set free to do
what they do, with director Shelton overseeing the action and letting
scenes wander where they may, knowing they can be pruned down to
essentials in the editing room.

With actors functioning as de facto screenwriters, casting is
crucial, and Shelton wisely placed a well-seasoned mumblecore veteran
at the center of the Humpday experiment: Mark Duplass, cocreator
and star of 2005’s The Puffy Chair and a naturalist actor of
extraordinary warmth and skill, whose work Shelton came to love while
shooting still photographs of True Adolescents, Craig Johnson’s
Duplass-led film that also played SIFF 2009. “Watching him act, I was
really impressed,” says Shelton, who soon after pitched Duplass the
idea of a film about two straight guys who decide to have sex.
“Originally, I envisioned Mark as the wild one, but he fought to play
the domesticated Ben,” Shelton tells me. “He’d gotten married and was
having a kid, and he was totally feeling that character’s story. I told
him this required him to help me find someone who could fill the other
role and match him on-screen, and he immediately brought up Joshua
Leonard, who of course had experience working in this nonacting acting
style from The Blair Witch Project.”

Humpday‘s leads carry the majority of the movie, but the
heart of the film is Anna, the domesticated Ben’s not-so-domesticated
wife, played to quiet perfection by Alycia Delmore, a Seattle actress
Shelton’s been hungering to work with since casting her in a small role
in her 2006 directorial debut, We Go Way Back. Another crucial
female role in Shelton’s bromance is played by Shelton herself, who
more than holds her own on-screen and wonders if she’ll try it again.
“I don’t know how people do it,” says Shelton of directors who star in
their own films. “I love to act, but acting and directing at the same
time is insane. It’s hard for me to turn off my director’s brain.”

It’s unlikely Shelton will be able to turn off her director’s brain
anytime soon, as the success of Humpday is opening a variety of
doors for the 43-year-old filmmaker. Will Shelton soon be helming
summer blockbusters? “It would be foolish to not take advantage of
opportunities, bigger budgets, all that,” says Shelton, who admits
she’s fielding a variety of offers. “But my next project is my little
movie with Sherman and Sean”—that’s Sherman Alexie and Sean
Nelson, two Seattle notables with notable ties to The Stranger,
whom Shelton will film engaging in a My Dinner with
Andre–esque discussion. It’s another iffy premise—but
after Humpday, Shelton’s iffy premises can be seen as the first
step toward brilliance.

Do it yourself! HUMP! 5 is coming. Info
at
theStranger.com/hump