Vimeo Short Film Of The Week: ‘A Writer and Three Script Editors Walk Into a Bar’

Short films matter. Vimeo wants you to know it. So do we. That’s why every week we’ll take a look at some of the short film world’s best and brightest. This week, we bring you Matthew Saville’s cracker-jack comedy A Writer and Three Script Editors Walk Into a Bar.

The Plot: See title. Don’t overthink it.

The Film: Hey, 2016 was a mother fucker right down to those last few days. But it’s finally over. With 2017 – in all of its glaring uncertainty – officially underway, I think we’ve all earned a good laugh. So here’s A Writer and Three Script Editors Walk Into a Bar.

Why Press Play?

Writer/Director Matthew Saville finds more laughs in the two and a half minutes of this film than most Hollywood comedies find in 90. He does so with a single joke … that you already know the punchline to. That’s just the point. Saville isn’t interested in that punchline as much as he is in the path there. The path he choses is as funny to watch as it is painful to listen to.

That’s got a lot to do with writing. Saville’s A Writer and Three Script Editors Walk Into a Bar is simplicity itself. One location. Four characters. And yes – to hammer this point home – one joke. What he spins from those minimal threads is a tiny miracle. The characters are believable and beautifully developed by the film’s cast. Every word and every joke is impeccably timed. The scenario is absurd but wholly believable. That scenario is specific to a certain set – if you’ve ever had dealings with an editor of any sort, you’ll be cringing throughout – but the way it plays out is universal.

Nobody likes to be edited. And interrupting a joke often kills the punchline. But Saville takes such pleasure in building jokes around those interruptions that they become the punchline. Even as they enhance it. Every perfectly timed pause and every quixotic question bolsters the final, pitch-perfect delivery. When A Writer and Three Script Editors Walk Into a Bar finally does get there, that punchline becomes something unexpected. Something far more humorous than the tired joke that spawned it. It becomes a genuinely funny moment … drenched in personal anguish. You’re as likely to shrink at the moment as you are to laugh at it. Odds are you’ll do both. That’s just the point.