Gasoline Rainbow

I went into this blind and in the end I rather enjoyed it.

The nature of the movie makes any viewer older than the main characters feel compelled to criticise it and all the while, it is difficult to ever genuinely feel entitled to do so. In a simple sense, the characters are drawn to be inarticulate and somewhat 2 dimensional, but then people at 17/18 tend to be like this.

In this sense the film feels more relatable, although the plot feels wholly unrealistic, even for however simple it all is. 5 kids who have just finished high school decide to go on a road trip to the pacific coast 500 miles away? Speak to and trust every stranger in sight? Don't stare at their phone constantly? Yeah I don't think so.

Themes of being alienated, feeling different, and having no community and not knowing what they want to do are all painfully ironic when they seem to relate so strongly to each other and to literally every person they meet and feel capable to venture out wherever they want. The characters almost represent the antithesis of what they feel afflicted by. To be sure, I am confident this was deliberate albeit on the nose.

Still, the film remains both thematically, and visually inspired, and optimistic. Most of the characters are not developed much, but I suppose this is the point. Lots of different imagery, and juxtapositions of music make the film feel different in a characteristically "independent" sorta way. For what it is worth, since I don't watch many movie like this I enjoyed that component.

I don't know in what way this is meant to reflect the zeitgeist or the current concerns and interests of young people when I swear this has been the story of the youth since time began. Similarly, I question who this movie is really made for given it is a streaming on Mubi- a service I estimate most young people don't have, the lack of character development and generally easy roles for each of the characters makes it less relatable still to an older audience.

Still I want to acknowledge that the attempt made to reflect the reckless and uncertain feelings of being a teenager are commendable. Shaky camera handling, very wide angles as well as very intimate angles all present an obscured moment which seems to leave as soon as it is noticed.

I would recommend this bearing in mind about 30-40% of the time it feels like a commercial for Abercrombie and Fitch.

A part of me also really thinks this could have achieved greater heights if it followed the same plot for about 30-40 minutes and then become a blockbuster horror slasher movie. That might of been neat.

"...small-town Oregon who, with high school in the rearview, decide to embark on one last adventure: to make it to a place they've never been -the Pacific coast, 500 miles away."

I don't need everyone who writes about a place to literally be from that place, but maybe a glancing familiarity would be useful, no?

Just look at a map of Oregon. There isn't a town, and there isn't a route, that would make the ocean 500 miles away. It's a bizarre detail to center the entire story around, especially considering these kids could have been from any town further inland.

I don't need 100% accuracy to be invested in a story, but if you're trying to tell an authentic story about a certain part of the world, how can i trust your take on the subject when you don't even know the basic lay of the land?

Man, i really hate to leave a negative review for a cast of kids and an indie flick on a budget, so i'm sorry everybody, but this movie was like watching some random persons iphone's camera roll and just as uneventful as you could imagine that to be.

I have a hard time believing there was any kind of script or game plan to this "movie". No real thought provoking dialogue between cast members throughout their journey. No real meaningful conversations. Nothing interesting emotionally or visually ... just two hours of totally random 'happenings' and word vomit as these kids went from the east side of oregon to the west.

Along the way they encounter a bunch of other (trashy) people while someone sits back and records all these interactions. It's really that basic and about as boring as you would think.

There was absolutely no need to drag this out for two hours. An hour and fifteen minutes would've been more than enough for this movie/doc.

Also of note, it made oregon, one of the most beautiful places in America, seem super crappy and trashy, which it's just not.

Very disappointing to say the least.

If you have something else you were considering, i'm 99% sure that will be better than this.

That was pretty cute but was long at the same time. If u want to impress ir something like that don't watch with that expectation, I wanted be on the journey when I watch it, chill.

Life is not bad as u see there is more out there, I saw a lot with all my journey but I know there are more like this guys showed me.

I see a lot of bad review people hate it just I didn't understand what they expected, the movie tell you chill but as I understand from your review you didn't.

I mean yea maybe would be better but I don't think they wanted show as something better and impressive I think they exactly showed us what they want and it was chill.

20 minutes into "Gasoline Rainbow" and I was pretty bored. This movie is why I don't want to hang out with 18 year olds. The kids in this can barely form a coherent, intelligent thought. Their vocabulary is limited to variations of the "f" word. They all seemed interchangeable. I barely knew their names. If they had interests, hobbies, aspects of their personalities that set them apart from each other, you don't learn about them.

But, while I'm not sure I ever completely got over my restlessness while watching this movie, this movie does work a kind of modest spell. By the time it was over, I realized that I had gotten to know these kids and had started to feel a little protective of them, and my wife and I had quite a bit to ruminate about after the movie was over. It made me appreciate living in a place like Chicago, with access to so much, and where I can expose my kids to the world. A lot of Americans who've never known anything other than big cities and the suburban areas immediately around them have no concept of the vast spaces out there, and how deadening and hopeless it can feel to grow up in them.

"Gasoline Rainbow" feels like a bunch of young people without any resources to actually make a movie decided to just go ahead and make one anyway. For that reason, it feels often like you have to do a lot of the work yourself. That can be wonderful, and many times is actually what I prefer in my movies. But it can sometimes also come across as lazy and half-baked. It's like paying for a meal in a restaurant and having to make half of it yourself. It feels like the directors gathered some friends together and just started winging it, hoping something substantial would emerge. It sort of does, but not enough to be really satisfying. If you're not going to have a strong screenplay and give your actors structure and direction, then you need to make sure they're really good at improvisation. Stoned, drunk people are actually really boring to hang out with.

So while I overall am glad I saw this, I can see why others would be bored to sobs by it. I don't blame them, and I'm not sure I could unequivocally recommend it to anyone else.

Grade: B.