Your mental health is truly your most important meal of the day, as succinctly shown in the head-turning short film Help Is… On The Way?, written and directed by Jason A. White. Parker (Andrew Key) has a head full of discordant noise from all the problems in the world weighing him down. His therapist, Blair (Lyn Alicia Henderson), struggles to get through to him, but Parker crosses his arms and keeps deflecting. Parker is stressed out to the max, as his troubleshooting job is never-ending, and he has no help and no sleep. Blair asks him why he can’t get some help at work and why can’t he take a vacation? Parker reacts with sarcasm and keeps resisting taking Blair’s advice, but not being able to solve all the world’s problems is driving him crazy.
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“…all the problems in the world weighing him down…”
Amongst all the tricks you can pull out of the cinematic magic hat, one of my favorites is the punchline ending. I love how unassuming everything is presented in order to distract you from the teeth that will clamp down once the trap is sprung. And White, who also did the precise production design, really took time to polish his stainless steel trap. I was particularly taken with the expressionistic Venetian blind shadows across Key’s face as he sat on the couch in Henderson’s office. Key does his job exceptionally well, as his bitterness is dark roast, delicious, and identifiable. Of course, as is the case with punchline endings, you do not know just how good his performance was until you have all the cards on the table.
Henderson does a masterful job of laying it out cold and creditably. She is the spring on the trap, keeping the realism tight even at the breaking point. White’s clever script has a lot of psychological insight throughout the eight-minute runtime, even if it is just a fuse leading to a pile of punchline dynamite. Help Is… On The Way? shows the time and care that can be put into blowing the mind of the planet, one viewer at a time.