Brow Beat

Typically commercials that attempt to satirize advertising end up as bits of eating-your-cake-and-having-it-too bad faith, in which companies pretend they are above selling you something while trying to sell you something. The “fashion film” above, directed by Matthew Frost and advertising the Viva Vena! brand (the “budget” line of a designer called Vena Cava, apparently) is different for two reasons: 1) It satirizes precisely those commercials that pretend they are above selling you something—not to mention the silly, self-involved vision of personal style such ads lovingly evoke—and 2) it is frank about selling you something. The punchline at the end drives this home.

Also it is genuinely funny. And it stars Lizzy Caplan. It really has quite a lot going for it.