Gasoline Rainbow

Grade: B

Gasoline Rainbow is a raw, real movie, featuring some of the most authentic acting of the year. It’s bold, and shoots for the stars. It hits some of them. Andy Warhol and Richard Linklater would be proud of it. It immediately made me think of Easy Rider, as well as my beloved The Florida Project and Perfect Days. It’s made with no chemicals or preservatives – and ultimately turns out to be a reminder that a little of that thrown into the recipe wouldn’t have been terrible.

It’s a coming-of-age road trip film, in bare bones, documentary style. Five actors (Tony Abuerto, Micah Bunch, Nichole Dukes, Nathaly Garcia and Makai Garza, who all go by their real names in the movie) star as recent high school graduates, going out for one last hurrah before they have to “get jobs and [stuff].” This angle made me think of How to Have Sex from earlier this year. Their family histories aren’t the greatest in the world; they come from alcoholic/addict parents, and sometimes have bounced around through various homes. They have their sights set on the Pacific Coast in Oregon, with rumblings of an epic party there. They keep talking about “the end of the world.” I’m not sure whether that’s the formal name of the party. They don’t have much money or concrete plans, but they do have a van, until they don’t.

The movie contains excellent moments. I considered giving it the highest grade I’ll ever rate a film. There’s a spellbindingly cool shot where the setting sun casts their shadows on the ground so they look like a handful of enormously tall, thin beings. There are profound musings about Neil Armstrong, and how everything must feel so ordinary once you’ve been to the moon. “I’ve been on the moon, but now I’m just at the grocery store.” If this had been an A movie, I would have saved this quote for the last paragraph, to lead up to my closing line, now unused. The soundtrack is terrific. These kids are forced to sleep in some uncomfortable places. In one scene, they wake up, and as a guy so elegantly puts it: “My balls feel like they’re in Satan’s toaster oven.” Hot morning, huh?

They meet many people and participate in some epic parties along the way. One character says to them “I love the way you treat each other.” These performers are great together, to the point where I frequently forgot they were actors. They are credited with doing some of the filming, too. I loved the moment in a bar where we only half-hear a private side conversation between two people. That happens all the time in life, where you’re not directly involved in the talk, but close enough to be privy to bits and pieces. You don’t see that often in a movie. Unnecessary voice-overs by individual cast members pop up, Terrence Malick style. They’re not that insightful. Gasoline Rainbow maybe would gave earned the coveted grade if some trimming had been done in the second half. Capping the movie at an hour and a half maximum might have kept up the momentum of its infinitely delightful, hypnotic, promising beginning.

You can only be taken in by arthousy flights of fancy and montages for so long. Halfway through, it begins to wear thin, and I came out of the spell I was under. After a while, I’d had my fill of these kids, their use of the F bomb as often as the word “the,” and their constantly telling each other they love one another. I was ready for them to get to their MacGuffin, wrap it up, and grow up. I’ve been down this road before, with other movies I’ve mentioned that are better. I thought I would fall for it again, but even though its brilliant first half wasn’t sustained, it still emerges as one of the better examples of the genre. I do love the way they treat each other. I hope they had a nice time making this film. And I still kinda loved Gasoline Rainbow a little bit.

Grade: B