Five Dollar Friday — Mac Watson & ‘Last Laugh’

A filmmaker and their short film deserving of your attention

I figured this would happen eventually. But I was hoping it wouldn’t happen so soon.

The filmmaker I wanted to interview this week wasn’t able to find the time to answer my questions. Seeing as I’m still making this up as I go, for about twenty seconds I entertained searching for another campaign to feature.

However:

1. That doesn’t fit the spirit of what I want this to be.

2. I totally get it.

Prep is hard work. Very often in the wake of making a film you’ll get asked, “How many days did you shoot?” As if that’s the only number that matters, the only number that counts towards ‘directing.’

The truth is directing starts the moment an idea plants itself firmly in your mind, spreading roots to every corner of your brain. There are only two ways to treat this mental malady: starve the idea, let its tendrils wither and rot with neglect, and hope the itch eventually fades OR infect everyone else around you with it.

You’d be forgiven if you thought that bringing other people on board somehow lightened the workload. Instead of one person pushing a boulder up a hill, now you’ve got producers and a cinematographer and a production designer and a 1st AD and an entire team lending you their strength!

However, they’re not pushing your boulder for you. They’re studying the rock, asking you questions about it. Questions that shape and reshape and refine that rock. Questions that carve away what doesn’t belong, chisel it into something sharper, stronger, undeniable. Questions that make it the best damn rock it can be.

But, at the end of the day, there’s only one person getting that rock up the hill.

Anyway. Enough torturing metaphors. Let’s look at Mac Watson’s Last Laugh.

The look to camera in the mirror? That cheeky smile? The timing with the music? :chefskiss: She had me hooked then and there. Gives great Promising Young Woman vibes—which I wasn’t surprised to see referenced throughout the rest of the campaign materials.

Here’s how the story is described (with a slight paraphrase from me):

Set in the backrooms of Hollywood, behind the curtains, and amongst the demons of its players — both established and aspiring — Last Laugh is a psychological thriller that explores why influential men get to run away from their past sins.

Lily is primed to get her long-awaited break as a series regular on a prestige television show, that is until she is brow-beaten by that shit-eating grin staring down on her from a bus station poster. There he is, Dean Elliot, on the comeback trail. Even after news broke about his sexual indiscretions; even after she came to realize he preyed upon her too. With his disingenuous face stuck in her mind and unable to recall her lines, Lily’s opportunity slips through her fingers in the final audition. And he gets to go on, like nothing ever happened; like he never hurt anybody. Well not if Lily has anything to say about it.

As far as I can tell, Last Laugh will be Mac’s directorial debut. But her webseries pilot Casanova, which she wrote and starred in, traveled the festival circuit in 2020 as a short film. It’s a riot. Absolutely hilarious, I found myself laughing out loud from start to finish. See for yourself:

As much as I want to see more straight comedy from Mac—it seems to come so natural to her as a writer and performer—I’m excited to see what she does with her psychological thriller.

You can support her project Last Laugh here. I did. And I hope you will, too.

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