The Rainbow Experiment

There are a lot of plots to follow. Maybe too many. But I enjoyed the gritty hand-held shots and plot twists.

The Rainbow Experiment is an unsettling movie. One can imagine oneself as any of the different characters as the disaster in a school unfolds: the volatile teenagers, the angry and grieving parents, the professionals and staff locked in mutual combat. We experience the friction of nonsense and truth, secrecy and revelation, uncanny wisdom and stunning stupidity that we all are capable of. The multiple characters' backstories are confusing and sometimes excessive, but they add to the real-life feel of the film. The jumpy urban cinematography, split screen, and sudden scene shifts enhance the sense of everything happening at once. Random encounters between people build to an emotional climax....that may or may not be real. It's for you to decide.

This could have been great if they had stuck to the actual storyline. Instead it became very convoluted and confusing, the timeline was all over the place. I just wanted to follow the kids and what happened to them. I don't really know how it ended, too.

There's a lot goin' on in the time-shifting mystery drama "The Rainbow Experiment". Too damn much, actually.

Not to imply that Writer/Director Christina Kallas isn't abundantly ambitious in presenting this tragic tale set in a New York City High School. But there are far too many ill-defined characters involved in a surfeit of underdeveloped or out and out inexplicable predicaments to make it wholly palatable.

Still kudos go to veteran actresses Laura Pruden as a no-b.s. police investigator with a soul and Francis Benhamou, a school counselor who believes she can rescue kids who sadly may have long since passed the point of saving.

The Rainbow Experiment is a gritty, unsettling dramatic film that will have your eyes glued to the screen from beginning to end. I highly reccomend this film.