TWO PUDDLES

 

THE SETUP

Firstly, I’d just like to say thank you to Writer/Director, Timothy Keeling for allowing me access to an online screener of his 6 minute Mystery/Drama short, “Two Puddles”. Two Puddles sees a family of three’s quiet day in the woods takes an interesting turn when one of them enters a puddle of water only to resurface from an adjacent one shortly thereafter. The film stars Luke McGibney, Amy Keen, and Julia Florimo.

I’d read some positive things about Two Puddles prior to inquiring about it. The thing to note here from a filmmaking standpoint is the professionalism with which Two Puddles is conceived. All the technical elements are great and the heavily wooded countryside setting aptly fits Keeling’s premise. Newcomer DP, Chris Lee (with just two credits to his name) employs some extremely sharp cinematography made up of tight neat framing and gentle panning techniques. The audio track is crisp and clear and each of the performances is solid. Content-wise, this one reminded me a little bit of Ren Thackham’s “Round Trip” – a stellar short from earlier this year. I wasn’t completely sure what to make of this one though. The puddles didn’t appear to be a representation of anything obvious (at least not to this viewer). The characters wind up in a cycle that’s perhaps linked to their ability (or in this case inability) to self-reflect – or at least Alice’s (Florimo). She shows signs of frustration, depicted via certain glances at husband Evan (McGibney) earlier in the day at the lunch table. I suppose minor irritations can potentially become a bigger deal but that’s where another hint or two might have been beneficial. Benjamin Squires operatic style score is rather lively but somewhat wasted on material that better calls for more faint strokes.

With just his second short film, Timothy Keeling shows plenty of promise as a budding filmmaker. Two Puddles has wonderful production value driven by impressive cinematography and clean audio. The edit is quite good but the music does feel somewhat removed from the films initial tone. I think there’s a cautionary tale in here somewhere about bottling unresolved issues, but its scent is mild. Six minutes isn’t a lot of time for exploration (for either our family or Timothy’s writing) so I can’t help but feel that Two Puddles is the prime example of a notion that needs further investigating in order to be fully appreciated. You can check out the teaser trailer below and be sure to keep an eye out for this one soon!

My rating for “Two Puddles” is 5.5/10