Leonard, as Andrew, is the wandering free-spirit with awkward tattoo placements and for whom boundaries are merely a light suggestion. Their dynamic is classic and worn, but not unwelcome: Duplass, as Ben, plays the domesticated goofball on the verge of planned parenthood with his wife Anna. Two indie staples stand at the center of the film: There’s pre- Zero Dark Thirty Mark Duplass with his buttery, boyish charm, and there’s post- Blair Witch Project Joshua Leonard, his erratic lost-in-the-woods energy still intact and sparking off in every direction. This is probably in part due to the film’s more nostalgic properties-in 2009, when the film was first released, I was a fresh-faced freshman with no lexicon for queerness outside of “gay” or “lesbian” or “faggot.” But what has stuck with me most about this film, and indeed, that year, are the dudes who entered my life and disappeared just as quickly, then reappeared long after I’d abandoned the version of me they’d met. Lynn Shelton’s Humpday is a film that reminds me of high school.
