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Director Lynn Shelton plays gay in her omnisexual film, “Humpday”

You might find it surprising that there’s a woman behind one of the summer’s biggest independent films, and not because it’s destined to be talked about, but because it’s about two straight male buddies who want to get it on.

Humpday, which opened this month, centers around a pair of best friends (Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard) who decide to sleep with each other for an annual short-porn film contest held in their home city of Seattle. Director Lynn Shelton has said in interviews that she felt compelled to make the film based on her own experiences. And when the film opened at Sundance last year, a bidding war broke out for the distribution rights.

Here’s the trailer:

“Greater openness in general about homosexuality … helped,” Shelton said in an interview with The Scotsman. “In America, if you’re under 35, on the whole, nobody cares. It’s just not a big deal. People are more out more easily. I think that all means you can explore these topics in a more open way. If it wasn’t for culture, we would all fall in love with whoever we happen to fall in love with.”

Shelton, who was an actress before she became a director, plays a small role in the film as a queer woman (cited differently as a lesbian or bisexual by several sources) that is in a polyamorous relationship and sleeps with one of the men.

Shelton said she wanted the film to be about “any intimate relationship, both with yourself and in relation to other people.” Humpday is less about gay sex and more about the relationships, including the marriage of one of the men which is floundering from the beginning of the film.

So basically it’s just as gay as Bruno, but likely to be way less offensive.

Will you be seeing Humpday?

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