‘Humpday’

If you had to stare down your greatest fear, what would that fear be?

Death? Heartbreak? Or maybe the incontrovertible evidence that you're not as cool and edgy as you thought?

The latter rueful realization powers "Humpday," a droll, and extremely insightful, inquiry into the limits of male bonding.

Unlike recent, more commercial cinematic "bromances," this award-winning indie (back in Las Vegas after a June CineVegas showcase) sidesteps raucous humor in favor of an intimate, low-key approach. It's heavy on the conversation and light on the comedic contrivance.

Except when it comes to "Humpday's" central premise -- which has nothing to do with Wednesdays.

The movie focuses on the unexpected reunion of two college friends who followed very different paths when their crazed campus days (and nights) ended.

Ben (Mark Duplass) has settled into a solid, maybe even staid, existence in Seattle. He's got a responsible job as a transportation engineer and a strong marriage -- underlined by the fact that he and his wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore), are trying to have a baby. Often. So when Ben's artist pal Andrew (Joshua Leonard) shows up at their door late one night -- make that early one morning -- it's a definite blast from the past.

Unlike Ben, Andrew has wandered the world with little to show for it, if you don't count the "LIVE FREE OR DIE" tattoo snaking down his spine.

Almost as soon as Andrew bursts through the front door and crashes in the spare room, however, Ben realizes that his days as a free spirit are long gone.

At least until the fateful night he joins Andrew at a bohemian bash thrown by some adventurous artist friends. (Anna's at home making her famous pork chops.)

During the party, Andrew comes up with another artistic project, one that includes Ben.

Together, they'll make a short film destined for Seattle's annual Hump! festival devoted to homemade porn. A movie featuring two decidedly heterosexual guys -- themselves -- behaving in a decidedly nonheterosexual way.

"It's not gay, it's beyond gay," Andrew reasons. "It's not porn, it's art."

Easy for him to say. Not so easy for them to do.

That built-in conflict gives "Humpday" much of its comic energy.

Note that it's not the in-your-face, bust-a-gut outrageousness of such current crowd-pleasers as "The Hangover."

Writer-director Lynn Shelton created the story in collaboration with her performers, who improvised plot developments and dialogue based on an "emotional map," to borrow Shelton's term.

The very notion of emotion surfacing in a movie all about grown men trying to maintain -- or regain -- their macho youth testifies to "Humpday's" offbeat qualities.

Shelton keeps the focus squarely on Ben and Andrew's psychological squirming, individually and collectively, as the fateful title day approaches and they face such daunting questions as who does what, and where? How will Anna feel once Ben informs her of his project with his old friend Ben? Ben does have to tell her, doesn't he? (Yes, he does -- and the result is one of "Humpday's" numerous humorous highlights.)

Clear-eyed yet sensitive to the emotional minefield her characters tiptoe through on their way to some serious (and seriously funny) soul-searching, Shelton maintains a wryly amused tone as she holds the mirror up to "Humpday's" protagonists.

They, naturally, keep trying not to panic. That is, when they're not pondering what their increasing unease says about how they've changed, how their friendship has changed and how it may change even more, if and when their "ultimate art project" becomes reality.

Throughout, Shelton and her collaborators keep "Humpday" thoroughly grounded. As a result, the movie unfolds as though we're eavesdropping on private conversations -- or, perhaps, watching Ben or Andrew's video diary of an especially momentous visit. (That certainly would explain the movie's jittery visual style, marked by hand-held camera moves.)

None of this would work, of course, without performers fully capable of handling "Humpday's" improvisatory demands.

Happily, Delmore, Duplass and Leonard are fully at home in the movie's wordy world.

In an auspicious big-screen debut, Delmore manages to be delightfully down-to-earth -- and slyly deadpan, calling these two overgrown boys on their immaturity even while expressing a grudging understanding of it.

Duplass (a veteran, on-screen and off, of such low-budget festival faves as "The Puffy Chair") captures Ben's contradictory yearnings -- to relive the carefree spontaneity of his youth, even as he reluctantly embraces his status as a semiresponsible grown-up.

And Leonard (who's followed his "Blair Witch Project" breakthrough with a variety of movie and TV roles) conveys Andrew's wild-but-no-longer-a-child exterior -- and the grudging acknowledgment that he might not be quite the free spirit everyone else thinks he is.

Yes, boys will be boys. But "Humpday" is that rare movie that sees, and explores, the humanity -- and even a bit of the heartache -- beneath all the hijinks.

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.