Warning: Mildly NSFW (but are you really in the office right now anyways?)

Marcy Learns Something New from Dream City on Vimeo.

In 2019, Paul Downs Colazzio’s Brittany Runs A Marathon became something of a low-key audience favorite coming out of Sundance. As well it should, it’s a feel-good comedy about a woman who is something of a personal trainwreck who needs to shape up and straighten out to be a productive member of society and shape herself into the of cog that will make the world into a better place. Training for the marathon is little more than a metaphor for Brittany learning how to take control of life and actually believe in herself. Through the course of the film, she is periodically a shitty person who has to hit rock bottom to come out on top, and the ultimate message is that it isn’t about the marathon but about taking control of her life and the friends she made along the way.

Julia Kennelly’s Marcy Learns Something New is a short film that works similarly to Brittany Runs A Marathon, where the “something new” is actually a metaphor for personal growth. Here, Marcy (Rachel Dratch) is a meek woman of a certain age whom everybody dismisses or walks over. And, so, she has to learn something to find her own inner strength with the help of the younger Henry Ayres-Brown. This short just amused the hell out of me, as I know a few people for whom this situation has actually helped in the exact same ways.