FLOODING

Produced, Written, and Directed by Todd Portugal
Edited by Noel Guerra and Todd Portugal
Director of Photography - Roland Canamar

Joyce - Breena Gibson
Evelyn - Laruen Bailey
Hank - Jack Turturici

Meant to spotlight new filmmakers, the now defunct Hollywood Video's First Rites line of videos was created to showcas potential talent that would otherwise be lost on the general cinema-viewing populace. Every title I review that's part of the line makes me miss the label even more, and that's especially true of Todd Portugal's FLOODING, a twisting tale of psychological noir about a woman suffering from agoraphobia.

Joyce is happily married and enjoying life with her husband to the fullest. She's about to start a new job, a photographer for a local daily. While out at an amusement park with her husband, he's shot dead in front of a merry-go-round full of children. The police see it as nothing more than random violence. Wrong place, wrong time. And the gunman is never caught.

Six months later, we find Joyce convinced that the world is evil and encroaching upon what's left of her existence. She locks herself into the only place she finds safe, her home. She secures a job where she doesn't have to leave. Her groceries are delivered each and every week. And she able to retain human contact through the personals and a series of one night stands. Her entire world is within the confines of her home. People come and go, but she can't.

With the exception of the opening and closing segments, the entire movie takes place in Joyce's house and viewers are forced to see things through her limited perspective. It's something Portugal freely admits to borrowing from Hitchcock and Rear Window. And just like Jimmy Stewart's predicament in that 1950's masterpiece, Joyce has to piece together a murder mystery from the confines of her limited universe.

The bulk of the movie rest on the shoulders of Breena Gibson and her portrayl of Joyce. According to the commentary, the director met with and cast the actress a day before shooting was set to begin. To her credit, she's utterly flawless. The movie itself is very dry and clinical, but she gives it a solid emotional core. Breena's performance is so natural and captivating that the otherwise long and drawn-out static shooting style is given punch by her forcefully desperate nature. At one point, where Joyce could simply sit and whine about her problems, she instead convinces us to believe the problem lies with those people who can't remain stationary in life - including us the viewers.

Breena Gibson is so good in her role that it's easy to be distracted from the flaws of the movie, including how neatly things are tied together. The script is extremely dialogue heavy, and like so many independent features much of the plot is given by way of exposition. It's a true talent for the actor to sell all this believably, but Gibson does it well.

After watching the movie, I visited the Internet Movie Database to what else Portugal and Gibson have done. Portugal is a big player in Steve Oedekerk's Thumb series of shorts. Sadly, Gibson hasn't done anything. Damn she's good. She takes what would otherwise be an mediocre independent production and really makes it shine. Portugal owes her, big time.