Long Term Delivery
2018 · 17m · United States
Directed by Jake Honig
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, whimsical
An employee of a secret division of the United States Postal Service desperately tries to deliver a Christmas present originally sent ten years ago.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A secret USPS division tasked with impossible mail delivery is exactly the kind of bureaucratic absurdism that shouldn't work but does—it's riffing on government inefficiency and temporal logic in a way that feels genuinely subversive, not just clever.
The film sits comfortably in a lineage of Kaufman-adjacent comedy that treats bureaucratic systems as philosophical landscapes, though its tonal control—balancing whimsy against genuine melancholy—demonstrates formal restraint that elevates it beyond mere premise.
The decision to anchor a ten-year postal chase in the emotional weight of a single undelivered gift, rather than playing it purely for absurdist laughs, is what transforms the conceit from gimmick into something that actually lands.
Reviews
Long Term Delivery is an energetic adventure that introduces its audience to a menagerie of odd-ball characters before serving up a surprising twist at the end. At almost 17-minutes long, Long Term Delivery is a fun ride and does a great job of holding your attention, whilst also providing a raft of humorous moments throughout.