This is an excellent indie short, a comedy that has its laugh out loud moments balanced with a real sense of pathos.
It's the story of Joe Schlepp, a Joe Nobody, a pathetic but lovable loser, his dead end job, and his quest to find an answer to the question, "How can I get people to stop yelling at me?"
In playing Schlepp, star/writer/director/editor Joe Hansard, even in his voice-over narrations, gives the audience plenty to laugh at, plenty of Schadenfreude, but at the same time really gets us rooting for his endearing Schlepp.
The supporting performances are also very good and the film as a whole is really tightly put together -- it's hard to think of a throwaway line, or a moment that isn't at least a little bit amusing. I particularly liked the unexpected direction the film moves in as it nears the end. It's also worth watching through the credits for a few last funny/sad shots of our hero.
What I like about this movie is similar to what I like in movies like Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Sideways, Donnie Darko, Ghost World, like those of Jim Jarmusch, John Waters. If you like intelligent, quirky, offbeat funny movies, there are certainly worse ways to spend 17 minutes than getting lost in Lost in Transportation.