My last full day at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (which wraps up on Sunday) served up a pair of comparatively conspicuous U.S. titles. Both are comic ventures of a sort that made a splash (one via widespread critical and audience enthusiasm, the other via a high-profile pickup by Fox Searchlight) at the Sundance Film Festival, but otherwise represent opposite tonal ends of the spectrum of American independent comedy.
Before I get into those, however, a quick shout-out for another marvelous French title, Sylvie Verheyde’s “Stella,” which merits further discussion down the line. A loose-limbed, autobiographical picaresque of sorts following the misadventures of a neglected working-class 11 year-old girl in a posh Parisian school, the film transcends standard coming-of-age territory via the protagonist’s mordant wit and an astonishingly assured lead turn from young Leora Barbara. This one’s also playing at the L.A. fest — catch it if you can.
HUMPDAY (***)
Since its attention-grabbing debut at Sundance in January, “Humpday” has become one of those odd items whose premise far precedes it: even those with only a scant working knowledge of American independent cinema can tell you that it’s a comedy about two straight dudes who get it into their heads to make a gay porno, even if they couldn’t supply a single other detail about the film.
It’s a grabby pitch, for sure, one that suggests a middle path between the low-fi realism of mumblecore and the high-concept gloss of Judd Apatow’s fratboy comedies, and it looks to secure “Humpday” a bigger audience this summer than any of its similarly-scaled peers.
So it’s something of a surprise, upon encountering the actual film behind the precis, that it’s nothing like the broad, raunchy goof-off that the publicity has led us to expect — and even more surprisingly, this isn’t an entirely good thing. There are big laughs to be had in “Humpday”‘s jazzy, yet swiftly drawn, first half; it certainly tickled me more on a gut level than any American comedy, indie or otherwise, in recent memory, and the joy is that the humor derives entirely from situational recognition and organic character interaction rather than planted dilemmas or pratfalls.
(The opening scene, in which a young married couple reluctantly admit to each other that they’re both too tired for sex, drew a roar of empathetic laughter from the packed theater — this is one 2009 “bromance” that should play equally well to both genders.)
The gentle-tempered restraint, however, proved problematic for this viewer in the final act, where writer-director Lynn Shelton is unable to heighten the comic register, and thereby raise the narrative stakes of an otherwise perceptive investigation of present-day masculine insecurity. It’s difficult to delve into the film’s weaknesses here without entering spoiler territory, but suffice to say that, presented with a 50-50 dramatic decision in the denouement, Shelton makes the wrong choice.
It’s hard to mind too much, however, with a steady stream of pointedly witty dialogue and a trio of limber, unaffected performances guiding us through the proceedings with aplomb. (Alycia Delmore is the delightful standout as the alternately bewildered, enraged and, in the final event, amazingly understanding wife caught in the middle of this damaged fraternal relationship.)
On leaving the theater, one critic in front of me likened the film favorably to “Sideways,” and it’s easy to see where she was coming from. The difference is that “Humpday”’s male everymen talk about fucking each other, instead of merely around it. The film is all the more bracing for that candor.
ADAM (**)
Fox Searchlight have been so canny in their festival acquisitions of late that one is inclined to take any new purchase of theirs seriously. Still, even bearing in mind their knack for spinning gold out of featherweight material (say, “Little Miss Sunshine”), it’s difficult to see what got them so excited about “Adam” at Sundance this year.
Max Mayers’s well-meaning but terminally wet romantic comedy, following the awkward courtship between Asperger’s sufferer Adam (Hugh Dancy) and his kindly, put-upon neighbor Beth (Rose Byrne), deserves a modicum of credit for tackling Adam’s autism in a compassionate, adult fashion, emphasizing his social functionality more than one might expect.
Nonetheless, it can’t help veering towards the condescending, particularly in scenes of forced whimsicality (usually hinging on Adam’s predictably limitless scientific and astronomical knowledge) that resemble an ungainly fusion of “A Beautiful Mind” and the Phoebe-David storyline from “Friends.” Hampering things further is a largely extraneous (and wholly uninteresting) legal subplot involving Beth’s oily lawyer dad (a rather unimaginatively cast Peter Gallagher).
On the plus side, Dancy emerges with his dignity very much intact, for the most part refreshingly avoiding the fussy “Rain Man”-style tics that the role lends itself to, though he’s cosseted somewhat by the character’s unwavering lovability. Byrne, meanwhile, is a little wan and shrill in a less sympathetic role that has more emotional range, but not much behavioral logic. (For someone who works in education, she’s also remarkably slow to cotton onto Adam’s condition.)
An undemanding date crowd might warm to the film’s inarguable sweetness, but lacking as it does both any real name appeal or the edgy quirk (however self-conscious) of Searchlight’s recent comedy hits, it’s hard to see “Adam” really taking off. It’s nice enough, but nice isn’t, well, enough.
Comments
6 responses to “EDINBURGH: ‘Humpday,’ ‘Adam’”
I’m interested in this, because I have Asperger’s, as well, like Adam. Interested to see if it’s accurate in its depiction of AS…and pretty much no other reason, but then, can you really blame me…?
Well, please do share your thoughts when you see the film, Joel. I found the film faintly patronising, so I’m interested to know what someone with your perspective responds.
By the way, have you read Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time?”
Yes, it was a very good book. Sometimes a little jagged and meandering, but only sometimes. Truly brilliant (sometimes devastatingly real) depiction of AS.
And the only other film I’ve seen that deals directly with AS was the VERY small “Mozart and the Whale,” which really only got by on its acting. It was a serviceable film at best, but it stumbled in its depection of the syndrome by explaining too much through dialogue. That won’t ever happen if you’ve met an Aspie. I’m hoping “Adam” isn’t the same way, and the trailers, if overly sentimental, seem not to do this. (SOME explaining, yes, so that the other characters know, but it was overwhelming in the Hartnett/Mitra film.) That in itself makes the movie promising for me. It’s released on July 29 over here, so look for a link to my blog review of it by way of comment on this article.
I thought the last act of Humpday was pitch-perfect. It may not be able to raise the comic register, but as an audience member, I appreciated how it felt like at any moment it could turn all too serious.
Thank God, heterosexuality is saved !
Only fit, slender, well-toned jocks have homosexual tendencies !
See, there was nothing to worry about ! We are fat, we are homely, we are straight ! Phew !
For the record, my concerns about the film’s final act do not mirror Jess’s.